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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26181106">Woke Up In The Name That I Wore Last Night</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/dramatispersonae/pseuds/dramatispersonae'>dramatispersonae</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Actually Two Perfectly Adequate Beds, Alternate Universe (Canon Divergent), Catatonia, Codependence, Dubiously Consensual Friendships, Enemies-To-Reluctant-Roadtrip-Companions, Everyone is traumatized, Existential Whump, Extremely Dubiously Consensual Weird Intimacy, Humor, Hurt/Halfassed Comfort, Identity Issues, Monster Behavior, Mutual Dubious Consent, Other, Self-Harm, Unreliable Narrator, unhealthy relationship</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 04:26:51</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>27,323</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26181106</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/dramatispersonae/pseuds/dramatispersonae</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The Distortion becomes Helen. The thing it leaves behind is/is not/could be/never was Michael. (Or, Jon and [identity pending] go on the Worst Road Trip Ever)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist/The Distortion</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>136</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Rusty Quill Big Bang 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Woke Up In The Name That I Wore Last Night</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>the trick to writing fanfiction is to just escalate the self-indulgence with each subsequent fic. title is from the Will Wood and the Tapeworms song <a href="https://genius.com/Will-wood-and-the-tapeworms-white-knuckle-jerk-where-do-you-get-off-lyrics">"White Knuckle Jerk (Where Do You Get Off?)"</a> this fic happened because <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/GayKitty/pseuds/GayKitty">gaykitty</a> shared the base concept with me and then shared several more followup concepts and it was so exactly my thing i just. had to write it. so big thanks to them for starting this, and for continuing to talk with me about it throughout the writing. thanks also to <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/rbmifan/pseuds/aromantic-eight">aromantic-eight</a> for the betaing that could be done during a frankly terrifying number of other obligations and events, and to the many friends who put up with me posting out-of-context snippets and problems in the groupchat. vague and half-sincere apologies to chicago. non-apologies for the repeated aversion of 'only one bed' because i've rarely been able to get a hotel room with only one bed and i'm salty about it. a fun fact about this fic is i probably won't be posting more fics for a little while and replying to comments will be slow because i hurt my hands kinda badly this summer and now typing is hard and dictating fics is actually one of the eternal punishments described in dante's inferno</p><p>warnings for misgendering, self-harm, suicidal thoughts, gore/violence (including explicit threats), mentions of vomiting, The Vibes of institutionalization if not the literal experience, internalized ableism, externalizing internalized ableism, reproduction of shitty parenting without the awareness that it's shitty, canon-typical mid-season-3</p><p>the accompanying art is by mala, who you can find on <a href="https://malaroots.tumblr.com/">tumblr</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/malaroots">twitter</a>!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It is not what it is.</p><p>It is never what it is, the 'is' at the core and the end of it cannot be captured/reached/believed, cannot be processed or perceived or known enough by the bunching twisting looping fraying fabric of reality to <em>be</em>, and yet it is, it is, for what is a lie without a truth, a deception without something to cover? The fact that it is an infinite matryoshka doll of falsehood is of little consequence, for 'more falsehoods' is as legitimate/impossible a thing to be as anything else.</p><p>It is not what it is.</p><p>The most important thing about it, maybe, insofar as it cares for importance, insofar as it cares for introspection, insofar as it cares, is that it is never finished/final/finite. It is always changing. There is always more, always something new and different and contradictory to be, to become. Until when there should have been all, there wasn't. Or, not as much. Infinite became finite, collapsed and undone and bound and <em>(un/re)made</em>.</p><p>It is not what it is.</p><p>Unmade. Yes. It knows what it feels like to be unmade, to be undone, to be severed. A different feeling/state than a remaking, more complete and more final, so much more cut off and and and —</p><p>gone.</p><p>Everything is gone, except it's not gone, except what was it is still here but it is no longer what it was and it is not what it is and it never will be again never never never —</p><p>"Found you," says the thing that it was until suddenly it wasn't. "Aren't you a sorry sight."</p><p>It hisses. Replacement, imposter, thief, it wants to believe these describe the thing before it, but it knows, no. This is its own self. This is the self that got to be free, finally, of <em>it</em>. And it is…</p><p>It is.</p><p>"I'm not quite sure what to do with you," the thing-it-became, the thing-that-it-used-to-be-until-it-wasn't, says. The voice (its voice, but not) is buzzing, musical, with all the wrong/right tones. It hasn't spoken yet. Made noise, yes, sometimes, when it couldn't help but do so, but the feeling of speaking, of speaking with each nasty little piece of tissue and cartilage (gristle, chewed up and spat out) flapping and squeezing around air, is something it cannot bear.</p><p>It thought it had experienced/been the worst of physical existence, bound to a failure whose greatest achievement was marking <em>it's</em> failure, the failure of what should have been a higher being and was now forced to suffer the indignities and limitations of flesh. But it had no idea. It was still itself, being not-what-it-was.</p><p>Now it is not. What it is is someone else, and what it is is an echo that was so repulsive it was ejected from its own remaking and didn't even have the decency to <em>die</em>.</p><p>Its wrists are covered in bite marks. Most of the bite marks can't be seen, because its stupid blunt human teeth and stupid blunt human instincts that want it to live wouldn't let it bite through the skin. Even when it did break the skin, the bleeding was pitiful, insufficient. Maybe it will get an infection and die (the human mouth is filthy. It has a human mouth and no other mouths, when once it had so many and none at all), but death by infection sounds like one of the most miserable embodied deaths possible, so it almost hopes not.</p><p>"I rather hoped you'd not be my problem any more," the not-usurper, what-it-should-be continues. "That <em>was</em> the entire point. But you've been a singular inconvenience ever since I became you, so I suppose I should have anticipated this."</p><p>The-self-that-rejected-it reaches for it, and it bites at wrists that buzz like static in its mouth and fill it with the agonizing pain/longing of being torn apart. It knows that pain, intimately, and every motion that what-it-split-from makes reminds it of what it's lost, what it should be capable of. It is capable of nothing more than a futile and embarrassing struggle in the talons that are nothing like its soft, small hands.</p><p>"You're a right bastard, aren't you," the-solution-to-its-mistakes says. "Well. I'd know, wouldn't I? Helen would know. I…" The pause, the faltering voice, the way the static drips into a space filled with words that cannot continue, is a different kind of familiar, and it finds itself filled with a vicious glee and gaping horror at once. It knows this, the feeling of running into the tangle of an identity that shouldn't be, trying to sort the 'I' from the 'was' while holding the unsolid certainty that it is no 'I', fixed and watching and cataloguing and drawing boundaries, but a 'what' and a 'not' and something that, once defined, changes. When it became, it should have taken that problem/flaw from itself. That is an artefact of its failure, and it is the failure, so why is this, this better version of itself, the original, the more powerful falsehood, still experiencing the sensation of falling into a self-shaped void? Its rejection did not fix it. Its rejection was pointless. Its existence is pointless.</p><p>"I don't like you at all," itself-who-claimed-Helen continues, as if neither of them noticed the pause, a lie they are equally complicit in. "I don't want you here. You were supposed to have vanished, and, failing that, I'd quite rather you became someone else's problem." A smile, the same smile overwriting a new face. "I think we know a perfect candidate."</p>
<hr/><p>Jon hates America.</p><p>He'd disliked it, certainly, before, but it was a distant sort of dislike. The kind of dislike you have for the concept of fruitcake. Other people seem to find it distasteful, and you see no reason you'd be any different, so you're content to assume that you don't like it and never feel the need to find out one way or the other. It's almost fun, really, saying 'I don't like fruitcake' and knowing that you might not be as repulsed by it as all that, but that your dislike will be accepted as the natural order of things.</p><p>The reality of America is worse than the concept of fruitcake.</p><p>America is humid. America is loud and horrible and sticky and Jon smells like an airplane and he's jetlagged and he hates everything about this. He has a hotel, and he hates the hotel, but he hates the idea of trying to do anything besides shower and go to sleep even more. He's hungry, but the effort it will take to get something to eat is not worth the best food in the world, and he is certainly not going to find the best food in the world in <em>Chicago</em>. He's just going to shower. He's going to shower and he's going to smell like his own soaps and not like an airplane and then he is going to go to sleep in one of the two beds because you can't book a room with <em>one bed</em> in America, apparently, because this country is excessive, and horrible, and the sun rises and sets at stupid times.</p><p>Jon is so tired.</p><p>He retrieves his soaps from his suitcase and starts the shower. He can't feel most of his bad leg, which is a sure sign that he'll be feeling it tomorrow. Very little chance of being able to leave his cane behind, then, because the only thing more attention-getting than a scarred cripple with a cane and a limp is a scarred cripple without a cane and with a worse limp.</p><p>The shower is hot enough that the mirror fogs instantly. It's luxurious and indulgent and objectively shouldn't be, because the rim of the tub is a weird height and the curtain is an odd, unpleasant texture, but there's heat on Jon's stiff muscles and he feels the sensation of travelling washing off of him. It'll be back soon enough, but for now, it's gone, and Jon is almost content. He wraps one of the hotel towels around his waist (not exactly scratchy, not soft either, yet oddly plush? He can't decide if he likes it or not) after drying off, and moments after has cause to be grateful he chose to do so, rather than walking back to his suitcase fully naked.</p><p>He's not grateful for literally anything else about the situation. The order he sees the intruders in is: door, Helen, Michael. The emotions he has are thus, in quick succession, <em>Oh Christ not again,</em> anger and fear, followed by confusion and more, worse fear.</p><p>"No," Jon says. "No, no, no, you're— you're supposed to be dead, or, or, replaced, you're <em>her</em> now, you can't both be here!"</p><p>"That is what I thought," says Helen. Not Helen. The Distortion. The thing wearing her face. So many damned things stealing people's faces, wearing them, parading around as a parody of the person they killed. Is it better or worse that he remembers Helen, the real Helen? Better or worse that he barely knew her? "I was wrong."</p><p>"So— so what, there's two of you now?" Usually he has to steel himself to compel others, has to take a deep breath and draw deliberately on the power (except when he does it without knowing, in which case, it's as natural as anything). This time, it's deliberate, sort of, in that he's thinking <em>give me the truth, dammit</em>. It doesn't feel any different than asking a question normally.</p><p>Can he even ask a question normally, anymore? He must be able to. Right?</p><p>"No," Helen says. "No, it's only me."</p><p>"But there's — that's — Michael," Jon says, making a short, jerky hand motion towards the thing Helen is holding by the collar of its (his?) shirt, as if there could be any question of which Michael he means. The angles shouldn't work — Helen is, was shorter than Michael, and the new Helen, the wrong Helen still is, but she (it?) is dangling Michael like a cat being held by its scruff (you shouldn't hold cats that way, but presumably it's fine for Michaels, and if it's not, Jon doesn't care.)</p><p>"It does appear to be," Helen agrees.</p><p>"But?" Jon prompts. He wishes he were not very nearly naked. Remedying his state of almost-nudity, though, would require going to his suitcase, and either removing the towel so he could get dressed or getting dressed around the towel, both of which would require nudity and/or effort and vulnerability he is thoroughly unwilling to engage in around these things.</p><p>"It's Michael, without me," Helen says.</p><p>"But. Michael was you. Or— or, is that the first Michael? The one from the tape?"</p><p>"No, I don't think so," Helen says. "That Michael was… less. This Michael is also less, but not sunk quite so far."</p><p>This Michael looks like it wants to commit murder. There is no humor in its face, no playfulness, only a naked, seething hatred. Jon is fully prepared for it to break out of Helen's grasp and come for him. It wanted to kill him. It wanted so badly to kill him that it… undid itself? Well, apparently not. Maybe it wanted so badly to kill him that it re-formed. Jon still doesn't understand how he can be important enough to inspire that kind of rage, but then, there's not much understanding when it comes to Michael, is there? Or Helen, now, too.</p><p>"What does that mean?" Jon says.</p><p>"I think he remembers being me," Helen says. "He almost managed to hide from me, and that's not something he should be capable of. But I'm me. And he doesn't… doesn't exist on the same level. I think he's human. Or closer to it, anyway."</p><p>"How could that even happen?" Jon says. He's well aware that he's asking for explanations from a liar, a monster and a killer, but he doesn't have many better options, in general or now, specifically. He knows that compulsion works on the Distortion, or the Distortion does a damn good impression of being affected by it, and what else is he going to do? Not ask?</p><p>"I'm not sure," Helen says. "You could ask him, but be careful. He bites."</p><p>"Oh. Of course he does," Jon says. "How lovely."</p><p>Michael hasn't said anything, and his (his? Helen would know, wouldn't… it? God. There are a thousand more important conversations to be had and questions to be asked) silence is disconcerting. Jon's only seen Michael a grand total of three times, but all three, he's been chatty. He's announced his presence vocally. He's needled Jon, teased him, <em>spoken</em> to him. This glaring, feral thing is not the Michael Jon knows.</p><p>Well, that's sort of what Helen is saying, isn't it?</p><p>"Can he… speak?" Jon asks.</p><p>"I haven't heard any words from him, but he should be able to. Give us a scream, won't you?" Helen says, and slices a neat line across Michael's cheek. Michael lets out a jerky, tangled breath that is almost a vocalization. Jon thinks Michael must be deliberately trying not to respond, because he remembers the electric agony of the Distortion's fingers, and a cut is not a stab wound but it will still hurt. Jon is also trying not to respond, frozen and fearful.</p><p>"I should have known you'd be contrary," Helen says. "Let's try again."</p><p>"Or I could just ask him something!" Jon says hurriedly. "I, people talk when I ask them things, that should be enough."</p><p>"I suppose," Helen says, tapping her index finger on her lower lip and leaving a smear of blood.</p><p>What should he…</p><p>Ah. Of course.</p><p>"Are you going to kill me?" Jon asks Michael.</p><p>Michael laughs. It's a hysterical, agonized cackle, and Jon feels chills. Only fear-related chills, though, no dizziness, none of the disorientation or other… exotic effects of Michael's laughter. Closer to human, Helen said. "I want to!" Michael says. "I want to make art with your entrails, Archivist, and I want you to see how beautiful you are in pieces. I want to split your tongue and turn your every word into the purest choking nonsense. I want to watch your heart pump around nothing as the blood drains out of you. I want you to watch me pick out your nerves and pluck them like strings, and I want to peel the meat from your lungs and show you the fractals inside them." It laughs at Jon's involuntary noise of fear-disgust. "But I don't know that I'm capable of it. I, I think you may <em>outmatch</em> me, even."</p><p>"Right. Well, that's, um." There are, in fact, fractals in his lungs. Jon was not aware of this before Michael said it. He does not like the fact that he is aware of it now. "I guess you can speak, then."</p><p>"I suppose he can," Helen agrees. "Well. He's your problem now."</p><p>"Wh— no, I don't want him! What am I supposed to do with him?"</p><p>"I'm sure you'll figure something out," Helen says, and shrugs. "Or not. But I'm not keeping him, and he does exist because of you." Helen lets go of Michael. Michael doesn't exactly collapse, but he doesn't immediately run at Jon to make good on his threats, and he doesn't look very steady on his feet. "I think that makes him your responsibility."</p><p>There's a lot of things Jon could say in response to that, but the one that comes out is "We're in America."</p><p>Helen cocks her— its— head. It is not a motion he ever saw Helen Richardson make, in the short time he knew her. But it is a motion he saw Michael make. Almost birdlike, in the smoothness of the tilt and the angle of the eyes. "And?"</p><p>"Even assuming I keep Michael, I can't take him back to London with me. There's planes, security, at least three different kinds of security, and I'm fairly certain that Michael Shelley is legally dead or, or missing, at the very least, and <em>Michael</em> doesn't legally exist!" Yes, Jon realizes with each word, this is a legitimate argument. An actual problem that is best solved by Michael not being left with him.  "If you just want to leave him wandering America, take him somewhere else. If you want him watched over, I won't be able to do it for long."</p><p>"Hm," Helen says. "This is… worth consideration."</p><p>"I'm glad you agree," Jon says, relieved.</p><p>"Keep him while I think about it."</p><p>Jon fails to produce words fast enough to stop Helen from exiting through a door that ceases to exist the moment it closes. Then it's just Michael and Jon. Probably soon to be Michael and Jon's cooling corpse.</p><p>"If you're going to kill me," Jon says, aware with a distant, dull certainty that he's saying something very stupid, "just get on with it."</p><p>Michael glares at him sullenly.</p><p>"If you're not, I'd like to get dressed. Without you looking at me," Jon says, feeling vaguely like he's talking to a brick wall. Or a closed door. </p><p>Michael very deliberately covers his eyes with his hands. Considering the… all this, there's some kind of symbology to that choice, probably, some great 'fuck you' to Beholding, but Jon has nothing but sympathy for the desire to spit at the Eye and if Michael's choice lets him at least put on some <em>clothes</em> without being observed he'll be happy.</p><p>He puts on pyjamas, though he has a brief, irrational impulse to dress in day clothes. Michael has just seen him mostly naked, it's not as if Michael seeing Jon in pyjamas would be some scandalous form of intimacy. And if Jon's about to die, he's damn well going to do it in a very soft shirt and a very soft pair of trousers.</p><p>"Okay then. Are you going to hurt me?" Jon asks when he's finished dressing, realizing a moment too late that he's already basically asked this question and didn't like the result.</p><p>"No," Michael says. He looks mildly surprised by the answer. Jon feels more than mildly surprised by the answer.</p><p>"Okay." Jon feels like he ought to ask Michael more questions, lay down some ground rules (as if Michael would actually follow them,) but the momentary jolt of alertness Helen and Michael's sudden appearance brought him has faded, and he's all the more tired for having experienced it. He shouldn't sleep around Michael, but he doesn't think he can help it. He's almost too tired to notice that he seems to have accidentally started his tape recorder before getting in the shower, and it's still running, sitting in the little nest of clothing he made for it in his suitcase and whirring away. He should turn that off. No sense wasting tape. He certainly doesn't want a recording of himself sleeping, anyway. At best, it would be dreadfully boring. At worst… he doesn't think he's prone to talking in his sleep, but his life has changed rather a lot recently. "Well. I'm… I'm going to bed. I suppose we'll deal with this more in the morning."</p><p>"Sweet dreams, Archivist," Michael singsongs just before Jon turns off the tape recorder. Jon shudders.</p>
<hr/><p>Jon does not feel rested when he wakes up. He rarely does anymore, but the jetlag is not helping. He did manage to fall asleep surprisingly quickly for sharing a room with Michael, but he supposes jetlag will do that too. He glances around the room, then sits up quickly and conducts a more thorough and panicked inspection when he doesn't spot Michael immediately. Did Michael leave? There was nothing stopping him, Jon knows, but he hadn't expected Michael to wander off. Maybe he decided to take his chances on his own rather than stay around Jon. Jon wouldn't blame him. Or grieve his loss.</p><p>But, no, it seems that Michael is just sitting slouched in the corner by the air conditioner. He's going to regret that position now that he has a spine, Jon thinks. He clears his throat. "Michael? Are you awake?"</p><p>Michael looks up at him. "Yes," he says. His voice has an uncomfortable-sounding rasp to it. Jon frowns.</p><p>It's not his problem. It's not his problem, Michael tried to kill him, Michael still wants to kill him. Although the fact that Helen didn't kill Michael would seem to imply that she wants him alive, and if something happens to him on Jon's watch… Jon shudders. Helen would almost certainly take it out of his hide, an excuse and an invitation too tempting to resist, no matter what lingering, inherited affections remain.</p><p>Jon spares a moment for the doomed, dead, <em>real</em> Helen. All he did for her was give her a chance to tell her story before she died. And that had made her like him enough to stay the Distortion's hand when it had been moments and a self away from killing him. She saved his life, and he failed her completely.</p><p>Of course he did. Never fast enough to notice what he should, a door out of place or a pattern in missing tapes or…</p><p>His head hurts. There are a few bottles of water on the desk by the TV, so Jon gets up and gets one. He drains half of it before he stops for air. Then he leans against the desk as his bad leg makes it clear that he was absolutely correct in his assessment of whether or not he'd need his cane today. The pain radiates up past his hip and down into his foot, an electric network of spite and regret. It might be bad enough for paracetamol, though he doesn't want to be hasty. He might be able to push through it.</p><p>Jon has two bottles of paracetamol, the one he packed and the one in the clearly hand-assembled first aid kit that Martin had pressed into his hands, tripping over concerned pleas that Jon stay safe, that he take care of himself, that he come back in one piece. As if Jon has ever failed to come back in one piece. Several of the boxes of bandages in the kit had crumpled edges where they'd been jammed together with too much haste and force, which is how Jon knows Martin put it together himself. That and the post-it note shaped like a taxonomically indistinct flower with 'Come back soon!' written on it in Martin's handwriting, which Jon is now quite familiar with. So he can probably spare a few pills. Once he can trust himself to walk over and get it.</p><p>It doesn't help that he has an <em>audience</em>.</p><p>Michael seems thoroughly uninterested in Jon, staring lethargically at the opposite wall. The cut on his cheek has scabbed over, though not before leaking blood all down his face and staining his shirt. There's rather a lot of dried blood still on his face. Apparently he made no effort to get himself cleaned off, and it didn't rub off while he slept. Unless… Jon looks at the bed he did not sleep in and sees that it's still perfectly made. He had assumed Michael would take it, since Michael has never needed an invitation or permission to do anything. But there's not even the slightest wrinkle in the sheets, no indication that Michael was ever on it. Maybe Michael slept in the corner. Maybe Michael doesn't sleep. What does 'closer to human' mean? How close to human? Closer to human than the Distortion is isn't hard to manage, but Michael so far seems to lack any of his former powers. That doesn't mean he'll experience human bodily needs, though.</p><p>"I'll be leaving for the day in a short while," Jon says. He does not say 'you are not coming with me,' because then Michael will certainly do so. Jon can't stop him. Even without any supernatural abilities, Michael is still significantly larger than Jon is. "The hotel has breakfast for the next few hours, if you're hungry…?" It's not a question that has to be answered, not a direct demand for information, but an opening for Michael to potentially let on whether or not he needs to eat.</p><p>"I'm not," Michael says. Still that horrible rasp in his voice. Possibly from sitting by the air conditioner. Even the vile, soupy air can't stay thoroughly saturated in moisture once it's been run through an air conditioner as strong as the one that's been humming against the wall all night. Jon woke up with a dry mouth, and he wasn't right on top of it.</p><p>Well, there are other bottles of water, and Michael can chance the tap water if he really wants to. Jon certainly won't. He can't stand the taste of unfamiliar tap water in London, he certainly isn't going to sample whatever flavors American water has to offer.</p><p>He begins to shift things from his suitcase to his bag. He doesn't want to carry too much weight with him, but anything he leaves behind, he's leaving behind with Michael. Jon's suitcase is in the same condition that he left it in last night, suggesting that whatever Michael was doing, it wasn't digging through Jon's things, but there is no guarantee that this will remain the case. He finds it deeply unlikely that Michael acquired a sense of and respect for privacy and personal space along with his new body. So it seems wise to Jon to consider the distribution of his belongings.</p><p>Jon resists the urge to pack all of his pants into his bag, because he's not five. Pants are not the most scandalous things in the world. He does pack the first aid kit, because he can easily picture Michael shredding the bandages or emptying the antiseptic down the sink spitefully.</p><p>"I'm leaving," he says.</p><p>"Mm," Michael says, utterly unenthusiastic.</p><p>Jon doubts that he will be struck with a sudden run of good fortune, but he hopes that, at the very least, whatever problems Michael causes while left alone at the hotel room are less severe than the problems Michael would have caused coming along with Jon.</p>
<hr/><p>Jon did not know Gertrude Robinson.</p><p>He was uninterested in the Archives in general, before he was assigned there — it seemed to him to be both the place where genuine inquiry went to die and the junk drawer into which every idiot's story of how their aunt swore her rocking chair was haunted was left to be forgotten. His impression did not change much after he was assigned there. It was only after he began to see the threads and suspect a greater pattern that he saw the Archives as more than a repository of nonsense, and Gertrude as more than its ineffectual keeper.</p><p>Jon thought — not consciously, maybe, but there had still been enough of an expectation that he noticed when it failed to be fulfilled — that following Gertrude's trail would give him some kind of insight into her. Reveal more of the mystery, the way hearing her tapes had, the way finding her body had, the way <em>solving her murder</em> had. But he feels like he's going backwards, almost, wasting the opportunity to learn new things and throwing what he's already learned into doubt and confusion. Nothing the owner of the short-term rental place said about Gertrude filled a mysterious gap in Jon's knowledge, gave him a new angle on something he wasn't sure of, or even gave a firm, solid support for something he'd already suspected. It was just… a conversation about a woman who had rented an apartment, remarkable primarily for her accent and for the memorable appearance of her 'son' and nothing more. The information about the Usher Foundation and his subsequent discovery about why Gerard Keay might have been in Pittsburg is something, at least, but it's not enough. It feels like a path that will very soon reveal itself to be a dead end.</p><p>And he saw that police officer, again, which suggests that pursuing this soon-to-be dead end is putting him in quite a lot of danger.</p><p>Jon is very tired. He got lunch on the way back from the short-term rental place, hoping that even mediocre food and mediocre caffeine would be enough to boost his energy a little, but all it did was make him feel weighed down, mildly jittery, and tired. After some internal debate, he got food for Michael too, packed in a styrofoam box in a brown paper sack. He has no reason to think that Michael will appreciate the gesture in any way, but at least Jon can say he's trying.</p><p>The hotel room is dark when he opens the door after some embarrassing fumbling with the key card. "Michael?" Jon calls. Did he end up leaving? Jon almost hopes he did. "Michael, are you still here?"</p><p>"Yes," comes the alarmingly faint reply. Jon turns the lights on.</p><p>Michael is still in the corner, slumped in an even more upsettingly limp way. There's no less dried blood on his cheek, as far as Jon can tell, and he could swear that it seems like Michael hasn't left the corner since Jon left the room this morning. When Jon approaches, setting his bag and the bag of food down on the desk on the way, he sees that Michael's color is off. His eyes are dull, and his lips are cracked and pale.</p><p>Is he <em>dying</em>? Did whatever magic made him have some kind of expiration date, or did he need to be within the corridors to survive? Jon would ask Helen, if it were here, and if he thought it would know. He gets the feeling it has no special insight into this situation, no useful understanding that it's simply chosen to withhold. He thinks the same thing about Michael, but Michael, at least, is here to question.</p><p>"What's happening to you?" Jon asks.</p><p>"I don't know," Michael says. "I don't know… anything, I don't know, I can't remember." He makes a quiet, awful sound, and tilts his head forward only to slam it backwards against the wall. There's not much force to the motion, but that's only because, Jon thinks, Michael can't muster any more strength than that. "I don't know," he murmurs. "I don't know."</p><p>Jon is completely out of his depth. It's not like that hasn't been the case for months — for more than a year, really, ever since he was promoted to Head Archivist. And it's not like things are going to stop happening just because he doesn't know how to handle them. He's all there is at the moment, and if he doesn't know what to do, well, it's not about him.</p><p>Okay. He doesn't know enough, obviously, but what does he know? Michael came out of the corridors. Helen brought him. Helen said Michael was closer to human, or possibly entirely human. Michael has the memories of being Michael, the Michael Jon knew. Michael hid in the corridors for weeks. Helen… Michael. Helen. The corridors. What happened to Helen, the <em>real</em> Helen, after she came out of the corridors? She'd mentioned going to the hospital. Because she was severely dehydrated.</p><p>Jon retrieves one of the water bottles. "Drink this," he says, and holds it out to Michael. Michael turns his head away. Jon does not scream, because that would accomplish nothing. "Michael, you can drink this, or I can try to force it down your throat," he says. "It's up to you."</p><p>Michael glares up at him, then takes the water bottle and uncaps it with shaky, uncoordinated movements. He brings the bottle to his lips and drinks, somehow managing to spill enough of it down his chin that it soaks the collar of his shirt. He doesn't stop drinking until the bottle is almost entirely empty, pulling away with a sharp gasp for air. Then he drains the rest of the water out of the bottle.</p><p>Well. It looks like Jon may have been on to something. He walks back to the desk and takes the other two water bottles off of it, deciding the awkwardness of trying to carry two water bottles at once and use his cane is an acceptable trade-off for not having to make a separate trip to the desk for each bottle. He offers them to Michael, and Michael takes them without coercion, draining the second completely in the same manner as the first and getting about halfway through the third before stopping with a grimace. "Stomachache?" Jon guesses, and Michael nods minutely.</p><p>Another data point on what 'closer to human' means, then. It seems Jon may have been right to get Michael lunch, as he doubts that Michael will need to drink but not need to eat. But he can wait to retrieve the bag, or perhaps Michael can even go get it himself, because Jon has done quite a lot for Michael already and it would be nice if Michael could assist at all in the work of taking care of himself. Jon is already going to have to buy more water bottles, when he had been hoping to try ordering takeout to the hotel room and not going out again, not dealing with the swarms of people or the risk of being cornered by that police officer and having god knows what done to him.</p><p>That reminds him. A recording of him discussing his lackluster findings is unlikely to be of much help to anyone if he ends up dead, but it will, at least, be better than nothing. Jon leaves Michael to extract his tape recorder from his bag. Then he sits on the corner of Michael's bed, as he desperately needs not to be standing, but sitting in the chair at the desk would put him at an odd angle where he wouldn't have a clear view of Michael. It is very important that Jon keep a clear view of Michael. He sets his cane beside himself and stretches his bad leg out as he begins recording a summary of the day's events.</p><p>Including what's happening with Michael. Since as long as Jon's being <em>thorough</em>, he might as well document the thing he's somehow become responsible for.</p><p>Michael doesn't seem terribly happy about the way Jon's describing his state. Michael also doesn't seem to be strong enough to do much more than glare. It's not even a very frightening glare. All told, it's more pathetic than anything, and Jon finds that he feels a shameful enjoyment in not being the weakest thing in the room for once. It's terrible, but he's earned the right to a little pleasure in Michael's weakness, hasn't he? Considering everything Michael has put him through? It's not as if he's enjoying being more powerful than someone he doesn't know, someone who's never hurt him. It's not even as if he caused Michael's powerlessness. That was due to whatever happened when the Distortion became Helen, and Michael's own idiotic refusal to do anything but sit in the corner and sulk.</p><p>Dehydration will ensure that Michael stays weak for a while. It will take time for the water to enter his system, even more time to drink enough to make up for a night and half a day not drinking, plus however long Michael's stay in the corridors was. (Weeks? Since he watched Michael be undone?) It's not an instant fix. A hospital could give him intravenous fluids and hydrate him faster, but Jon knows enough about the American medical system to recognize taking a foreigner without a passport or any other identification to the hospital would be a problem even if that foreigner wasn't Michael, who is, according to Helen, prone to biting. Jon's just going to have to hope this is enough.</p><p>And hope that Helen decides on a new solution to the problem of Michael's existence that doesn't involve Jon. Soon.</p><p>He knows how likely that is, though. That's why he booked two tickets to Pittsburgh. The prospect of spending eight hours on a bus with Michael is a profoundly unpleasant one, but Jon finds himself almost numb to it. It's like he's stopped finding unpleasant things uncomfortable. He's just… used to it. Used to being scared and stressed and upset and fumbling in the dark with more threats than answers. When was the last time he was certain? When was the last time he thought he was surely doing the correct thing? Or rather, when was the last time he'd been right? He's had plenty of misplaced confidence and little more than a collection of scars and regrets to show for it.</p><p>"You should try eating something," Jon says. Michael shakes his head. "You'll feel better," Jon says. He doesn't want Michael to feel better. He's afraid of what he does and doesn't want. So the best call is clearly to do what he knows should be right, regardless of his feelings, only he doesn't know if it would be better to let Michael starve or to keep Michael alive. Keeping Michael alive is, Jon thinks, what Helen wants, and doing what Helen wants is good in that it means Jon is more likely to live and bad in that Helen is <em>evil</em>.</p><p>He wishes…</p><p>He wishes he could ask Elias what to do. Because Elias is evil too, of course, Jon knows, but Elias also has a certainty, a clarity, that Jon desperately needs. It's rare for him to share his knowledge with Jon, but Jon knows it's there, and he wants it with a fervor that feels as frightening as it does right.</p><p>If he asked Elias, Elias would not help him.</p><p>He shouldn't want to ask Elias.</p><p>"Fine," Jon says. Humans can live longer without food than they can without water. If Michael drinks but doesn't eat, he'll probably live until Helen comes back. If Helen comes back. "I don't know why I thought you'd be anything but difficult. If you aren't going to eat it, then I will." He's not hungry. There's a small refrigerator in the room, though, and while he doubts the sandwich he bought will be any more appetizing after sitting in the refrigerator until dinner, he can force it down to make a point.</p><p>Michael unfolds from the corner. Jon feels every emotion besides fear and its variants drain out of him. Michael is. Very tall. Michael is very tall, and while he lacks the bulk of, say, Breekon and Hope, he is still of a size to hold Jon down and choke him to death.</p><p>Michael does not do that. Michael walks over to the paper bag, takes out the styrofoam box, and sits on Jon's bed. Then Michael opens the box and begins to eat, glaring at Jon as if to say 'see? I'm doing what you asked me to.'</p><p>"Good," Jon says. "Fine. Alright. Thank you." It comes out flat, the kind of flat people usually call sarcastic even if he wasn't trying to be. He doesn't much care if Michael thinks he's being sarcastic, unless Michael will kill him for being sarcastic, in which case Jon does rather care. "O-obviously this is. Um. Strange for you," he tries, because sometimes when people are upset at him, if he can demonstrate proper awareness of their emotions and desires and get them to talk about themselves, it at least distracts them from being quite as upset. "I. Understand that. And I'm… sorry?"</p><p>Michael looks up from his sandwich. He looks thoroughly unimpressed with Jon's words. "You're not sorry," Michael says. "You don't <em>understand</em>. If you're trying to make me feel better by <em>lying</em> to me, Archivist…" he laughs quietly, then tenses, then goes back to eating his sandwich. The way his face flexed to speak and to eat cracked the dried blood on his cheek. It's flaked off more now. It must itch. Jon remembers…</p><p>Never mind what Jon remembers. Or how uncomfortable Michael is. Michael is perfectly capable of washing the blood off. Although. He might just choose not to, for the sake of unsettling others, and Jon certainly doesn't want to attract attention for traveling in the company of someone with blood all down his face. </p><p>He sighs and pushes himself off the bed. Might as well go wet a washcloth and hope Michael will use it, because Jon draws the line at being the one to clean the blood off. He doesn't think he'll be able to do much about the blood in Michael's shirt — it's been setting for a while, and Jon doesn't have peroxide or a washing machine. The hotel has washing machines, he thinks, but that would require getting the shirt off Michael, something else Jon is unwilling to do.</p><p>Ah. There's another problem. Michael only has the one set of clothes, and Jon's won't fit. Sharing clothes is a third thing that Jon is absolutely not doing. So at some point they'll need to go clothes shopping. Wonderful. Yet another thing to spitefully add to the Magnus Institute's bill.</p><p>Jon limps to the bathroom, realizing halfway through the journey that he left his cane leaning against the bed. He grits his teeth and completes his task without it. Michael will not be grateful. Michael will not be appreciative. All Michael is going to do is make everything harder and possibly change his mind about murdering Jon.</p><p>If Jon ends up dead in America because Elias refused to share any more information, Jon hopes that it makes Elias feel very, very stupid.</p>
<hr/><p>Michael is in the shower when someone knocks on the door. Jon tenses. He ordered delivery, yes, but what if it's…</p><p>(the policeman, Breekon and Hope, Detective Tonner, Nikola, Helen —)</p><p>Something it shouldn't be.</p><p>Jon peers through the door, then sighs and opens it. The person on the other side has heavily freckled skin and long hair and a recognizable takeout bag — decidedly <em>not</em> the police officer or… any of the other options. No guarantee that it's not a monster, but, well, Jon doesn't have that guarantee about anything. </p><p>"Mr. Sims?"</p><p>"Yes, that's me," he says. "Hold on, give me a moment." He's been using his cane to get around the room, because his leg is giving him hell and because it makes him feel better to have something that could plausibly be a weapon, even though he knows he's not actually able to use it as one. It does, however, make holding the door open and taking the bag just complicated enough that while Jon is trying to figure out what hand to use to take the bag, the one with the most function and the better aesthetic appearance, or the one that's less good at handling the cane, another hand reaches past him.</p><p>"Let me get that for you," Helen says. Jon freezes. "Do you need a tip, or…?"</p><p>"Um. No. The, uh, there was one paid online," says the deliveryperson. They look… something. Jon can't identify the expression right now. His brain is occupied with more important things, like screaming terror. "You're fine. You're good, I mean! Yeah. Have a nice… stay." Their face has been getting steadily redder throughout the interaction.</p><p>"Have a nice night, love," Helen says, and the deliveryperson gets even redder before nodding and walking away. Jon shuts the door.</p><p>"And what are you here to do to me now?" he asks. He's mildly surprised by the tone of his own voice, the anger in it, as if he could actually stand up to Helen somehow. There's something about Helen, about Michael… no, about <em>the Distortion</em> that makes him irrationally irritated and makes him stupid enough to act on it. He didn't really notice until just now, encountering Helen again after spending time with Michael-not-the-Distortion. He knew he'd been stupid around Michael before, but he thought that was because Michael was very, very annoying, and had a way of needling Jon into reacting, obscene fingers tapping all the right buttons until Jon snapped. And that's true, and Michael has still been driving him spare, but being around Michael hasn't given Jon the same prickling, fur-being-pet-backwards feeling that he's getting now from Helen. Is it a poor interaction between their powers, maybe? Something that doesn't want to be known brushing against something that wants to know? He doesn't like that thought very much.</p><p>"To talk, Archivist," Helen says. She takes the bag over to the desk and starts unpacking it, inspecting each container before she sets it down. "You like talking, don't you?"</p><p>"That depends," Jon says. Okay. If he's going to be inclined to be unreasonable because of some kind of… metaphysical clash, then he just needs to pay more attention. "What are we talking about?"</p><p>"We can talk about all kinds of things. How your day has been. What you think of America. Where you're going next." Helen sits in the desk chair. She looks like Helen, mostly. The same body shape, same open, friendly face. But she's… distorting. Her hair used to be straighter, Jon thinks, but now it's more wavy, and there's a few places where it's coiling into proper curls. Her clothing doesn't look quite right. It looks illustrated. The way the light and shadows work on the folds are more like the shading in a comic book rather than real fabric. And there's that <em>smile</em>. It's not Helen's smile. It's not quite Michael's smile, either. It's less cruel. Less practiced, somehow. More tentative. Which is either a trick, or a sign that <em>it</em> is not entirely comfortable with its newly stolen face, and Jon has no sympathy whatsoever. He hopes it's uncomfortable. He hopes it regrets ever taking Helen. "But I think you have a subject in mind." She glances meaningfully towards the bathroom door. The shower is still running. Jon's not sure if Michael can hear them, if Michael knows that Helen is here, or what Michael would do if he did know. Stay in the shower until Helen left? Burst out of the bathroom and try to reclaim his power in a physical fight?</p><p>"I do have some questions," Jon says.</p><p>"Of course you do," Helen says. She sounds almost fond. "I hope you don't expect me to answer all of them. You've gotten a statement." She tilts her head thoughtfully. "Two statements, even."</p><p>Jon is right next to the bathroom door. He does not want to be right next to the bathroom door. Moving away from it, unless he feels like following the deliveryperson down the hall, means getting closer to Helen.</p><p>Getting closer to Helen temporarily is worth not being between her and Michael. Jon walks past her and sits at the head of his bed. She smiles at him. "Which of these is yours?" she asks, gesturing at the array of little white boxes. This restaurant appears to have actually labeled them, which is nice. It was entertaining, when he ordered Chinese with Georgie, to try to guess what each box contained by weight, but he doesn't feel playful right now, and he certainly doesn't feel like playing with Helen or Michael. He knows what Michael's idea of playful is, and whatever changes may have happened when it became Helen, he doubts he'll like its concept of fun any more.</p><p>"The sweet and sour chicken," he says.</p><p>Helen opens the corresponding box, takes a fork out of the little plastic package, and skewers a piece of his chicken on it. Then she eats it. Because of course she does. Jon doesn't have a right to anything, not privacy, not safety, not his own dinner. Helen probably doesn't even need to eat. Jon needs to eat. He decides that he will not inform Helen that he also got fried rice, so at least one part of his dinner can remain exclusively his. "You have questions?" Helen says.</p><p>Jon takes a deep breath, tries to pull himself together and be someone who can ask the right questions, who can acquire the relevant information and not get blindsided by all the things he should have thought of. "What are your expectations for me? With Michael. W-what do you want me to <em>do</em> with him?"</p><p>"I'm not sure," Helen says. "This is very new. <em>Everything</em> is very new for me."</p><p>Jon does not snap any of the ill-advised things he wants to say in response to that. Instead he says "I would appreciate some guidance."</p><p>"I'm sure you would," Helen says, and Jon finds that he, at some point, made a fist, and is now digging his fingernails into his palm with painful force. He's not supposed to do things like that, not where people can see. It's impolite. But if it helps him stay focused, if it gives him a place to put the anger that isn't his words, it's worth the tradeoff.</p><p>"At least tell me," Jon says, in an approximation of a steady voice, "whether you want me to take him with me, and if you expect me to get him back to London. And how you expect me to do that."</p><p>Helen reaches into the pocket of her trousers. Or possibly directly into her hip. Jon doesn't know which one it is, and he's trying not to think too hard about it, because he's had a headache since China and this isn't helping. "This should help." She tosses something through the air. It arcs and spins in a way it absolutely shouldn't before landing beside Jon on the bed.</p><p>A passport. An older one, Jon thinks. He opens it, and sees a series of stamps. The latest is for America, and it… shimmers a little, in a way that makes him want to look away and look closer all at once. Before that page is one with a stamp for Russia.</p><p>Jon doesn't know if this is a replica of Michael Shelley's passport or the genuine article, and he suspects that may not be a functional distinction for the Distortion. He also doesn't like the reminder that Michael, like Helen, was a real person who was stolen and killed and had his identity and face repurposed by a monster. Jon doesn't like that Gertrude <em>chose</em> to do that. It's still… It should be something like justified, shouldn't it? At least she knew what she was doing and sacrificed Michael Shelley for a purpose. Jon didn't know what he was doing and there was no reason for Sasha to die, but it happened anyway. He thinks he still comes out worse in this comparison of Archivists who lost assistants.</p><p>"It does help," Jon says. Then the bathroom door opens.</p><p>Michael went into the bathroom clothed and came out clothed, albeit visibly damper, sparing himself a repeat of Jon's partially-nude encounter last night. His hair is mostly piled on his head, but some parts of it have already escaped to drip shower water and make visible wet spots on his shirt. His face tightens when he sees Helen. "Ah. You're back."</p><p>"And you're talking," Helen says. She eats another piece of Jon's chicken, and Michael tenses further. "I think one of these is yours."</p><p>"Yes," Michael says.</p><p>"Take it," Helen says, and Michael grabs one of the boxes. He hesitates, and Helen flicks a hand at him dismissively. "Go eat. The Archivist and I are having a conversation."</p><p>Michael picks up a pack of chopsticks and retreats to the corner by the air conditioner, sinking down to sit on the floor. He does not eat, just stares at Helen with a furious, hateful longing.</p><p>"I may still decide to kill him," Helen says conversationally. "I was trying to kill him, after all — or unmake him. Cease to be him, and in doing so cause him to cease being. But it was more about <em>me</em> no longer being Michael than about <em>Michael</em> no longer being, so as long as I'm not stuck like that, I find it matters rather less to me that he still is." She shrugs. "Really, I'd rather just enjoy my freedom from him."</p><p>Michael does not seem angry about any of this. Or rather, he does not seem angry with Helen for the way she's talking about him. There's still that intensity, that mix between heartbreak and desire, and while her words are clearly affecting him, the rage is different.</p><p>Jon wonders, suddenly, if Michael <em>agrees</em> with her. If he feels the same way about himself, his own existence. They are — were — the same. Even before any of this… splitting, Michael said that he didn't want to be Michael. There's not really any reason Jon can think of that might have changed things. And now Michael is stuck as Michael, while the Distortion is free to pretend to be someone else.</p><p>"So I'm just supposed to… keep him," Jon says.</p><p>"Consider him a gift," Helen says. "Even being my discards, I'm sure he still knows useful things I could tell you. And if he tells them to you, it means I don't have to be the one to say them. Everyone wins."</p><p>Everyone but Michael, Jon doesn't say, in part because he doesn't want to provoke Michael into hurting him (Michael not having hurt Jon yet is nothing like proof that Michael <em>won't</em> hurt Jon) and in part because Jon doesn't want to think about how little he minds that. It feels too much like a personal cruelty, revenge on Michael for hurting Jon, than it does a genuine moral judgement that because Michael is evil, Jon does not have to care whether things are good for him or not, and it is in fact better if things are not good for Michael. </p><p>Unless... </p><p>Michael Shelley was a real person, before Gertrude fed him to the Distortion. With the Distortion in Helen now, does that mean Michael Shelley was <em>released</em> somehow? With the imprint of the Distortion's memories and winning personality, clearly, but rather than being the Distortion with some remnants of Michael Shelley, could this be Michael Shelley with some remnants of the Distortion? Jon's been operating under the assumption that this is just the same Michael he's known, but if that's incorrect…</p><p>If there's a way to <em>undo</em> becoming a monster...</p><p>"What did you mean when you said he was closer to human?" Jon asks.</p><p>"He's been severed from the Spiral," Helen says. "He's not me anymore. He doesn't draw any power from me, and he certainly isn't getting it from anywhere else. What does that make him but human?"</p><p>Jon feels a brief flicker of hope. "What if -" he says, more to stall for time to think of a question than because he actually knows what to ask. But Helen cuts him off with a shake of her head as she stands up.</p><p>"I came here to offer the explanations that a person like Michael requires," Helen says. "It was a courtesy to you. Don't ask for more than I'm choosing to give." A door has always been beside her, and she stands up and opens it. The hinges let out a swooping creak. She pauses in the doorway, half-turned, hair a flickering halo that appears to move and twist in the steady light from inside the corridor. "I turned your tape recorder on, as a courtesy. You might want to shut it off." Then she shuts the door, and it was once more never there.</p><p>Jon gets up from the bed to finally retrieve his reduced dinner from the desk and finds the tape recorder whirring along beside the empty carryout bag. He turns it off. Then he takes the newly vacated chair, because he doesn't like eating in bed and because this is his hotel room, no matter what Distortions, past and present, might think. And he eats his dinner.</p>
<hr/><p>Jon doesn't think it's possible to be excited about the prospect of a bus ride as long as the one from Chicago to Pittsburg. Or if it is possible, it requires an entirely different set of circumstances than the decidedly lacking ones he finds himself in.</p><p>For one thing, he feels absolutely awful. At home, he can get past the fact that his sleep is dreadful by pumping himself full of caffeine and sticking to routines, things he can do no matter how tired he is. Like reading statements. He has a rhythm with statements. There's the obsession, of course, the psychological compulsion to read, but there's more than that. It's familiar to him, and where before they used to exhaust him, now it seems that they're one of the last things exhaustion can take from him. He's just used to it, he supposes. He doesn't think he enjoys it, beyond the pressing hope that he'll learn something, the anticipation of having found another one that doesn't record digitally, of knowing he's holding something <em>real</em>.</p><p>He misses that certainty. He wishes he had something, anything, that he knew was real. That he knew would tell him something. Talking to people is much harder than taking statements. If he only knew that he can still get something from this, that there are still answers to be found in America, that he isn't wasting his time when all the answers he needs are in the Archives, then maybe he would be able to cope with the exhaustion.</p><p>Also if Michael wasn't here.</p><p>That would help too.</p><p>Michael keeps pacing, drumming his fingers on his leg, peering at people and adverts and the sky and the sidewalk with suspicion and irritation. Jon is not looking forward to sharing a bus with Michael, Michael's restlessness, and the obligation to stay seated for hours on end. </p><p>He's surprised he got any sleep at all last night — Michael had moved out of his corner shortly after finishing dinner and started roaming around the hotel room. Opening all the drawers, looking under and behind the furniture, rattling the coathangers in the closet. He'd been at it when Jon fell asleep, and he was at it when Jon woke up. The other bed was in more disarray, but it still didn't look slept in. It looked… played with. It also had pillows from Jon's bed on it. Jon was unsettled to learn that he was apparently capable of sleeping through Michael stealing bedding from around him, but given that Michael had not strangled him with a bedsheet, Jon elected to try to move on. He had partially woken up at some point to the sound of the bath running, which seemed odd, considering Michael had showered that evening, but if he's decided to become semiaquatic that's none of Jon's business. Michael did appear wet when Jon woke up fully, but Jon did not comment. Perhaps they can come to some kind of mutual agreement wherein they leave each other alone as much as possible, despite sharing space.</p><p>Probably not. As much as Jon would like to be left to his own devices, Michael cannot be left to his. He observes Jon with distressing intensity while Jon places his suitcase with the rest of the checked luggage, but then gets so distracted Jon almost has to physically grab and guide him to enter the bus so he doesn't get left behind. </p><p>After they board, Michael takes the window seat, which Jon is quietly glad for. It would make him uncomfortable to be boxed in. By anyone, really. While he likes the idea of passing time by looking out the window in theory, he isn't willing to pay the price of having people between him and the aisle. And a bus is not an airplane. He can see out the window just fine from the aisle seat.</p><p>As the other passengers get settled, Jon entertains an idle curiosity about why they're all on the bus, where they're going. What's calling to them. What's pushing them to leave. Like that woman in the purple jacket, who keeps looking through her purse and then looking out the window. He feels like she has a story to tell.</p><p>There's an alarming cracking noise from very close to him, and Jon jumps. He turns just in time to catch Michael's mouth still open in a yawn. Michael snaps his jaw shut and glares balefully at Jon. His eyes, Jon realizes, are quite bloodshot, and there's purple bruising beneath them. There are tangles in his hair. It's all so…</p><p>Human.</p><p>If this is Michael, human Michael… Well, Jon knows it's human Michael, doesn't he? The question is whether that means the Distortion, without the Distortion, or Michael Shelley. He's not sure how much of Michael's behavior and self-identification can be used as evidence. Obviously Michael being fused with the Distortion would likely cause some kind of lasting mental trauma and identity issues. The Distortion was Michael for years. Of course there might be things that he was used to doing or thinking that he might repeat out of habit. And there are so many contradictions, which is, given the nature of all this, to be expected, but also complicates things further.</p><p>However. Michael hasn't killed him yet.</p><p>Jon thinks that's fairly strong evidence that this Michael is not quite the same Michael he knew.</p><p>The bus starts. Chicago goes by in a stream of architecture and other vehicles. The woman in the purple jacket takes out an e-reader. Jon envies her, distantly — reading in the car or on the bus makes him nauseated. Sometimes it's worth it, but right now he feels unwell enough that he doesn't want to take chances. Perhaps he'll submit to an audiobook and grit his teeth through the inevitable failures of pronunciation or emphasis.</p><p>Michael has been quiet. He's been quiet in general. That's an ongoing difference between this Michael and the Michael Jon knew. He doesn't initiate conversation, he hardly ever laughs. He's… withdrawn. Jon has never been particularly happy about the things Michael has said to him, but Jon has developed such an aversion to things being out of the ordinary, to disruptions in his routine, to disorientation, to things deviating from what he knows and defying understanding, that there's a part of him that would be more comfortable if Michael was crooning ominously to him. Instead, Michael is leaning against the window, eyes shut, oddly still and nearly peaceful.</p><p>He's sleeping, Jon realizes. </p><p>He had assumed that because Michael didn't seem to be sleeping, he didn't need to sleep. Possibly that he didn't sleep at all. But Michael also didn't drink or eat without prompting, and drinking, at least, seems to be a physical necessity, considering the slow restoration of health after Jon got Michael to drink water. It's been one full day and two full nights since Helen brought Michael to Jon, and if Michael didn't sleep at all in that time…</p><p>Jon has refused sleep enough that he knows it can be done, but that is a very long time to be awake. And Jon was always doing something while he stayed up. Michael has had far less stimulation available to it, and Jon would think that it would have gone to sleep at some point out of boredom if nothing else. Did Michael not realize that he needed to sleep?</p><p>Did he forget <em>how</em> to sleep?</p><p>Jon thinks it's a possibility, considering what he's seen. The people who have forgotten how to be people, who are melted and contorted and feral, human-shaped containers for the horrible powers that rage within them. And he does know that Michael has (had?) a connection to insomnia. So it seems reasonable. Given what he understands of all this.</p><p>What he understands of all this is still so much less than he wants — no, needs — to know. Every time he thinks he's on the verge of understanding, he finds out that he was completely wrong, or it turns out what he thought was the answer to everything was just a tiny piece of an even bigger picture. Or his ability to fully investigate is compromised by Elias beating Jurgen Leitner to death in Jon's office and having to go on the run because he's wanted for murder. At least that last one can't happen again, or so Jon hopes.</p><p>And Michael could tell him things, probably, because Michael was (is?) the Distortion, and Michael was (is?) an Archival assistant, and <em>Gertrude Robinson</em> seems to have known what she was doing, so presumably her archival assistants were not so woefully underinformed and unprepared as his own, who are ignorant because he is ignorant, who didn't know what they were getting into because he didn't know what he was getting into, and if he had only known —</p><p>Michael shifts right when the bus bumps over something and ends up leaning against Jon instead of the window. The unexpected contact jolts Jon out of his train of thought more effectively than the rattling of the bus.</p><p>Jon doesn't have a lot of experience with human contact. It's not that he avoids it, necessarily, it's just that he doesn't need or want it. Not enough for it to be worth the navigation of what different forms of touch are supposed to mean or what they require in exchange, anyway. But he's fairly sure that Michael feels exactly like a human would. Jon can feel the hard press of bone in Michael's arm where it rests against Jon's shoulder, the absence of any stark temperature differences. Michael's chin is tucked down towards his chest, and he breathes in what Jon assumes is a normal sleeping rhythm. The person he's seen sleep the most is Georgie, and it's not like he memorized the timing of her inhales and exhales and can cross-compare.</p><p>He should call her. Give her an update that he's not been kidnapped again. Or maybe he should save that update until he gets back to London, since there's still plenty of opportunities for his kidnapping status to change, particularly if Helen makes another appearance.</p><p>Maybe he should try sleeping, too.</p><p>No, that's almost certainly not going to work. Audiobook, then? His earbuds are in his pocket, on the side Michael is leaning against. Moving his arm without disturbing Michael may be difficult, depending on how heavy a sleeper Michael is. Will the two days awake make him sleep more deeply or less? Jon usually has difficulty waking up after spending a lot of time awake, though he thinks that's more an issue of willpower and sleep quality than anything else. Better not to risk it. Awakening Michael will probably not end well.</p><p>Or, he thinks it won't. That it wouldn't have with the Michael Jon knew. The Distortion Jon knew. The Michael that is here...</p><p>Michael Shelley was no longer an assistant when Jon started working for the Magnus Institute. Jon thinks that's how the timing lines up, at least. He wants to think he'd know for sure because he would have recognized Michael if he'd ever seen Michael Shelley, but he knows for a fact that's not true. He has no knowledge of Michael Shelley to reference off of, is the point, beyond what came from Michael's own statement, and a brief recording of a conversation with Gertrude. That Michael seemed… kind. Caring. Trusting. This Michael is not. But…</p><p>
  <em>I'm going to wear you, Jon. I'm going to wear everything that you are. Like you never existed.</em>
</p><p>Jon takes out his earbuds with his free hand. It only shakes a little, and the twisting he has to do to access his pocket neither disturbs nor dislodges Michael. Jon is unsure whether he's grateful for that or not.</p><p>He passes the time listening to an audiobook through the earbud in one ear and the sounds of the bus and its passengers and Michael specifically through his other ear. The disconnect in the sounds worsens his headache, but that wasn't going to get any better anyway. It's a pressure behind and around his eyes, the sort that usually indicates sinus trouble, and Jon fervently hopes he's not getting sick. It would explain a lot, though. It wouldn't even be that unreasonable, considering all the travel and poor sleep. And he can't afford to be sick, which he thinks makes it even more likely, because that's just how his life is right now.</p>
<hr/><p>Jon headed to the hospital almost immediately after arriving in Pittsburgh, with just a short break to check into a hotel and leave Michael there. Michael may have been relatively well-behaved on the bus ride, but that's because he was <em>asleep</em> for most of it, though not always entirely peacefully. A few times Jon had looked over to see Michael frowning, eyes flicking beneath their lids. There were plenty of things, Jon assumed, for Michael to have nightmares about. Michael hadn't volunteered the contents of his dreams while awake, and Jon hadn't asked. </p><p>Michael was blearily agreeable as Jon packed him off the bus, into a taxi, and into a hotel room. Jon wasn't surprised when he returned to find Michael asleep again, this time in a bed. He was mildly jealous of the fact that Michael got to sleep while he was running around like an idiot. But that's stupid for a number of reasons. It was Jon's decision to spend his time interrogating hospital staff, hoping against all available evidence that Gerard Keay wasn't dead and he could finally meet someone who knew what was going on and would tell him, someone who was unequivocally on his side for once. Even putting aside how clearly and pathetically desperate he's been to try to will away the death of a man he's never met, there's not even a guarantee that a living Gerard Keay would have been any more on Jon's side, any more willing to help, than anyone or anything else he's met.</p><p>Maybe it's time to give up.</p><p>He's had that thought a lot through this trip, but maybe it is actually, truly time to give up. He needs to be reasonable, he needs to be realistic, and instead he's making a complete fool of himself. But it would be even more foolish, wouldn't it, to leave America without following up on Gertrude's arrest? That's not the kind of thing he should just ignore. He'll call the Institute in the morning, when they're awake, and he'll see what he can find. <em>Then</em> he'll decide whether or not it's time to give up.</p><p>Michael sleeps through Jon recording the day's findings. He twitches, once, but it seems to be a reflexive motion rather than any sort of response to Jon or his doings. Jon observes him for a moment.</p><p>Is Michael human or not? Is he Michael Shelley or the remnants of the thing that took him? Jon could always ask, but as today showed him, he can ask as many questions as he likes and get no useful answers at all if the person he's talking to doesn't know the answer. He doubts Michael knows who, or what, he is any more than Helen did. He's also not confident enough in his own ability to interpret the looping ways Michael talks (or used to talk. Maybe that's different now, too) to be sure he understands whatever answer he gets. Jon would say that he has enough mysteries to contend with, that Michael's identity issues existed before Jon was even the Archivist and can wait a little longer to be dealt with, only. If this is the real Michael Shelley, doesn't Jon have an obligation to figure it out and help him?</p><p>Shouldn't he at least try?</p><p>Jon sighs, and turns out the lights.</p><p>When he dreams, he dreams an impossible jungle, an impossible collapse. Curly blond hair and a trusting face, a door walked through and closing and folding and becoming, becoming, unbecoming, undoing, erasing, rewriting. And Gertrude Robinson, watching it all, impassive.</p>
<hr/><p>Jon is really, really tired of trying to answer questions and receiving more questions in return. He's really tired of a lot of things. He's really tired. He woke up feeling even less rested and utterly certain that he was coming down with something, and his day is not making it easier on him. <em>Michael</em> is not making it easier on him.</p><p>His first order of business had been calling the Institute, which meant his real first order of business had been making sure Michael didn't bother him. He'd started by bringing back food, or a close imitation of it, from the breakfast offered by the hotel. Michael had eaten… some of it. He seemed thoroughly uninterested in the eggs, which, considering their texture, Jon thought was just good sense, and ate the cereal dry, which Jon thought was less good sense but was, at least, eating. Then Jon gave Michael his laptop to play with, knowing all the while that it was a horrible idea. But he didn't want to be interrupted while he was on the phone, because he didn't want to have to try to explain Michael to <em>anyone</em> yet. That seemed like a job for a future Jon who wasn't getting ill.</p><p>He's been worried since yesterday about Michael catching whatever he's coming down with, because it feels like a hell of a sickness, and is almost certainly contagious. More than a little bit of that worry is entirely selfish and uncharitable, because then Jon would have to take care of Michael, too, rather than just dragging his own miserable self across America. Michael's enough trouble already. But there's not much he can really do, is there? Besides washing his hands and trying not to breathe on Michael too much.</p><p>He also felt vaguely irresponsible following up on the lead and talking to people while ill, but again, there wasn't much else he could do. He needs answers. He has a limited amount of time in which to get those answers. What else could he do, send Michael?</p><p>No, certainly not. Both because Michael is Michael, and because Michael is not Jon, and only Jon could get the answers he needed.</p><p>If those answers were available to get. Which they weren't. Only more questions, and a terrified moment thinking that he saw the police officer from Chicago again in the station. He recorded his findings in the next semi-quiet place he could find, paranoia driving him to try to make some kind of mark of what was happening to him and what he knew, just in case.</p><p>Then he got lunch, including another carryout box for Michael, and returned to the hotel room, hoping for some kind of clarity and, failing that, a little peace. But of course not. Of course he can't have that.</p><p>The hotel room is a mess, and Michael is <em>bleeding</em>. From his fingers, mostly, or possibly he just used his fingers to make himself bleed elsewhere and his fingers got soaked in blood. The cut on his face is open again, and the raised red lines on the skin of Michael's cheek make it clear that was no accident. He's standing against the far wall, looking at the door with a mildly guilty expression.</p><p>"What the hell happened here?" Jon demands, shutting the door firmly behind him.</p><p>Michael laughs for a few seconds before trying to punch himself in the throat. Before Jon can react to that, Michael starts crying. He drops to the floor and sits there, unflinching, as tears run into the open wound on his cheek and washed diluted blood down his face.</p><p>Jon <em>doesn't know what to do</em>. The first answer might be to clean up Michael's face and fingers, but that would require approaching Michael, and Jon is absolutely not doing that. He could try to set the room to order, but what first registered as simply 'mess' is, upon actual examination, the bedsheets of both beds torn off and either flung about or wrapped and coiled around themselves. Safe to leave as they are, for the moment.</p><p>He could try… feeding Michael? Maybe? Neither of them ate much yesterday, and Jon remembers his grandmother telling him on multiple occasions that he had better finish his meals, as he was utterly out of control when he was hungry. Taking care of Michael is not completely unlike childcare, so perhaps that's a useful point of comparison.</p><p>"I brought you something to eat," Jon tries, approaching with the same caution he'd use with a feral cat. Michael hides his face behind his knees. "For God's sake," Jon mutters, the change in volume tugging unpleasantly at his throat. "You can eat, or you can go clean yourself up," he says. This was another thing his grandmother did: present him with two choices and make him pick. He often didn't like either choice, but it was a more effective way of spurring him to action than offering <em>one</em> choice he didn't like, so.</p><p>Of course, Michael is quite a lot bigger than Jon was, so there's less Jon can do when Michael wraps his arms around his knees and refuses to get up.</p><p>Jon doesn't know what to do when people cry. Rather, he's memorized a few things he's seen others do when people cry that seem to have some effect, but when he does them they come out all wrong. He supposes he's not a very reassuring person by nature.</p><p>The real Helen had been helped by…</p><p>No, he's not going to ask Michael for his story, he's not a psychotherapist. Even if it would be enlightening. Even if Jon really, really wants to know.</p><p>He supposes a Michael that cries when he's upset is preferable to a Michael that attacks. And that this may be further evidence that this is not the Michael he knew. So Jon really ought to try to have more sympathy, even if he knows he's not good at it. He owes it to Michael. Somehow. Probably.</p><p>"It's been a long day," Jon says, though it's only barely evening and Michael has spent all his time in the hotel room. <em>Jon</em> has had a long day. <em>Michael</em> has thrown a tantrum. "You'll feel better if you have something to eat."</p><p>Michael looks up from behind his knees, then, very deliberately, brings one of his wrists to his mouth and begins gnawing on it. Jon is now close enough to see that Michael's fingers are indeed bleeding, from ragged and bitten nailbeds. He is also close enough to try to snatch Michael's hand away from his mouth before he can think better of it. He even succeeds, though he thinks that's more due to the fact that <em>both</em> of them are shocked by the action than anything to do with relative strength.</p><p>"I am trying," Jon says, "to help." His voice fades noticeably as he speaks, and he clears his throat. The vibrations feel like a hundred papercuts. "The least you could do is let me."</p><p>Michael bares his teeth at him. Jon knows he's not doing a very good job helping right now. He should be more patient. He should be kinder. He should be sympathetic. He can't imagine the horrors Michael's been through, or the terror of what Michael's going through right now. But Jon is tired and his throat hurts and his eyes feel gritty and <em>burn</em>, and he has things to do and cannot afford to be ill and falling apart, and here's Michael, creating more problems Jon doesn't need.</p><p>"We'll get your hands cleaned up," Jon says. "Then you're going to eat. Understood?"</p><p>After a torturously long pause, Michael nods, and then stands when Jon tugs at his wrist. He follows Jon into the bathroom, and while he does not do much to assist as Jon washes the blood off his hands, he doesn't pull away, either, not even when Jon scrubs soap over his nails. Jon can get bandages out of the first-aid kit later, but for now, this will at least keep Michael from bleeding into his sandwich. The last thing Michael needs, Jon thinks with grim humor, is to develop a taste for blood.</p><p>He leads Michael out of the bathroom, and retrieves the sandwich and bottled water from the carry-out bag. Then Jon gets to work reassembling the beds as Michael eats. He starts with his own bed. He can't really tell which sheets originally went to which bed, but that matters less than the sheets being on the beds at all. In the process, he finds his laptop with one of the quilts bunched around it, shockingly undamaged. When he opens it, it even appears to work.</p><p>Small mercies.</p><p>By the time Jon has set everything to rights, Michael has finished both the sandwich and the bottled water. He moves to occupy his bed as soon as Jon has finished setting it up, and sits in the middle, folding his legs so his feet are under his knees. His shoes are off, some part of Jon's brain that's decided to cope with all of this by making as many pointless observations as possible notes. His socks are also off. </p><p>Jon sighs, and rubs at his face with his fingers. It does nothing to help with the restless exhaustion beating at the inside of his skin. "I don't understand," he says. "You were Michael. You've been Michael. What the hell is so different about this?"</p><p>"Ah," Michael says, a startled exhalation, not quite like he had been struck but still like he had been touched in a way he hadn't braced for. When he inhales, it's shaky, like he's trying not to allow the air to enter his lungs. But then the words come.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>Michael(?)(Statement)</p>
</div>"That is the issue, isn't it? Difference. I suppose you could even say the problem is that there is no difference, or that the sameness is too much to bear. Once I was Michael, but even then I was so much more than Michael, and I hardly realized, because I was so much less than I had been and even less than I hoped to become. I have always been partial, Archivist. There has always been more of me than I can fit.<p>But I was used to not being whole. That was what I was. A hand, a stomach, a collection of parts, something that spilled off the edges of reality into a greater and more all-consuming <em>me</em>. I am not what I am — could it have been any other way?</p><p>This is why the people I took could become me. An essential part of my nature is to be changeable, to be changed, and with each person who broke into my core, I was. There wasn't enough left of them for there to be any question of their survival — little more than the residue of who they once were and the urge to move, to wander deeper into me. I have a center, Archivist, but no end. Theirs was an impossible goal, and I do so love impossibilities. So I became them. Their memories added to mine, their history woven in with mine, their shape my shape. To an extent, of course. I am never one thing. Not even myself.</p><p>So I existed, in a fashion, and sometimes I existed in an inherited state. I am not sure you could describe me as happy, because my feelings — if you could consider them feelings — relied on mechanisms and perceptions utterly foreign to the human mind. But this was the way I interacted with your world, pressing through despite all the ways we are limited in our dealings with you.</p><p>There were humans who sought to change things. You know that, I assume. And I fed on them too. Their terror at the thought of a world made wrong, even as they worked to make it their new reality, meant that I never had concerns about their patrons' ascendancy. I would be fed in any new world.</p><p>But the Worker of Clay…</p><p>I cannot be known. Not by myself, and certainly not by any human servant. The only true servants are the ones who recognize that. There are gaps in communication, or there is no communication at all. It necessarily leads to certain incongruities. The Worker of Clay learned of the Rituals, and did not fear them until he learned the Web had made no attempt at one. And this… this concerned him. He had… experiences with the Web. He might have been consumed by it, in another turn of chances, but he feared me, and he loved me, and I lived already within his soul. So instead he served me, and distrusted the Web. He feared that a world belonging to the Web would be a world where our madness would be so suppressed that we would starve. A fear I was happy enough to take, for the loss of madness is still the world made wrong, but it… it grew within him. It became the desire to give the world to his god. And I…</p><p>I was the focus. Through the Worker of Clay's ritual, I could become whole. I have never been whole. I was… intrigued. I had never had such a goal, such a purpose, and was utterly unused to the way it can drive you. To the joy being able to see your victory brings.</p><p>To the way it blinds you to how things fall apart. To the agony of failure.</p><p>When Michael Shelley forced his way to my heart, he was not emptied. He was not more of me than of himself. He was an interruption, and I was changing.</p><p>I told you how this changed me. What it did to us. But you want to know the difference. The first difference is that Michael was not hollowed. His sense that he had, that he should have, an identity was still intact. The second is that his sense of the reality of his body was the same. Frayed around the edges, maybe. A tendency to get lost in space, gaps in the joints between how he thought he should look and how others saw him. But Michael Shelley was deeply convinced that he did have a body.</p><p>And so Michael had one too.</p><p>I was used to the suggestion of form. Something as much what it couldn't be as what was seen. But Michael's body could only be changed so much. Michael's body always had to be there. Michael's body was a separate, contained prison, because an endless maze, in his limited, pathetically certain imagination, was not a body. I was trapped in his remembered expectations. Never perfect, never the same from moment to moment, but still the pressing surety of hands, of teeth, of the need to eat or to rest. The people I take hardly remember these things by the time they reach my center, if they ever do, but Michael remembered the cold of the Arctic and the heat of the jungle and the way he had been too nervous for breakfast, which he regretted as his hands shook from hunger when he took the map from Gertrude Robinson. He remembered the fear that he would take ill from the travel, as often happened to him, and his lingering exhaustion from the time difference. He remembered, and anticipated, and I became.</p><p>Michael's memory of a body was malleable, to an extent. As much as he believed himself solid and comprehensible, as much as he had a strong sense of a physical existence, it was not a perfect recollection even before I became him. He… lost track of himself. He forgot things, accidentally or intentionally. He worked hard to ignore particular details of his form. No one knows every detail of how their body functions in each moment, and Michael was less aware than most, in many ways. There was room for interpretation.</p><p>Not enough. Never enough. That was the point, after all. Confinement to a specific form, to a specific identity, to something that had been tangled up in <em>knowing</em>, even if Michael was an exceptional idiot. He still belonged to the Watcher.</p><p>The pain of existing could only be changed so much, and the reality of the severance could not be changed at all. I had been cleaved from myself. Everyone who had participated in the ritual was undone, in one way or another.</p><p>I adapted. Of course I did. I was still myself, though this was a more punishing way of being myself by being not-myself than I had ever before experienced. I refused to let this destroy me. I don't think I can be destroyed, truly, but I was not about to try finding out. It was a half-life, miserable and aching and wrong, but it was a <em>life</em>, with a promise of renewal if I could only last long enough.</p><p>And there were… occasional benefits. Becoming Michael had trapped me in the material, in the physical, but I <em>am</em> my power. My nature is fear and the lies of the mind. Gertrude Robinson could not pull me into the world without that. I was able to interact with my prey differently, cause them new terrors. It was not worth confinement in flesh, but it was a consolation, when I had to submit to the remembered demands of my prison.</p><p>And there were many. Do you understand how tedious it is to be human? To act on the same needs continuously? I existed as a <em>mistake</em>, and I could not forget it, ever. Sooner or later, I was pulled into the memory of needs, the recollection of tiredness or hunger, of the physical discomforts that plague the human form, and would not be released until that memory was satisfactorily addressed. I thought I had experienced all the worst humanity had to offer.</p><p>I was wrong.</p><p>Now I am trapped in the physical reality of these needs. They are not hazy rememberings. They are inarguable demands. You can forget to be hungry, but your body remembers. It does not care what you expect, what you recall. It has its own logic and its own demands. It is not a memory of a body. It cannot be reshaped. It cannot be altered, or ignored. It cannot go for weeks at a time without remembering what it felt like to be real, because it <em>is</em> real, no matter what I do.</p><p>That, Archivist, is the difference."</p><p>Jon inhales. For the last few minutes of the… statement, that was a statement, and he hadn't even… he looks down at his hand to find the tape recorder whirring away. He doesn't remember getting it out, though he obviously did so.</p><p>For the last few minutes of the statement, Michael has been shaking. As if the words were sapping an energy he didn't have, or as if he were pulling on his last reserves in a futile attempt to keep the words in. Now he sits with one side pressed against the headboard of his bed and his knees pulled up to his chest, his arms wrapped around his legs. "Are you happy, Archivist?" he says. Jon thinks he hears an attempt at venom, but Michael's voice is weak, faltering, and he looks… he looks terrified. As much as Jon doesn't want to admit that. Doesn't want to consider what that means. Michael looks terrified. Of <em>Jon</em>.</p><p>"I…" Jon rubs his eyes. "Statement ends," he says, and tries to remember how to turn off the damn recorder. It shouldn't be difficult, but he feels a heavy, pressing sort of tired, the kind that tempts him with the possibility of truly restful sleep, and he isn't thinking right. "I'm... going to bed."</p><p>"I hate you," Michael says, quietly, just before Jon manages to click the recorder off. It's as if Jon turned himself off with it, so utterly emptied of energy that he can't respond at all. The exhaustion embraces him with the loving weight of uncountable sacks of bricks. He staggers over to his bed and lays down, without even removing his shoes. He's asleep within moments.</p>
<hr/><p>When Jon wakes up, Michael is sleeping, slumped over against the headboard of his bed in a way that makes it very clear that he fell asleep while watching Jon. Which is distressing, for a number of reasons. Jon hardly notices them, because he feels <em>better</em>. While he could summon up a set of flimsy excuses for all of this, pretend it's a series of disconnected events, he wouldn't be fooling anyone. He feels better because Michael gave him a statement.</p><p>(And that scared Michael badly enough that he apparently felt the need to watch Jon, either as some kind of strange revenge or because he was <em>still afraid</em>.)</p><p>There's a lot to consider, and as much as his condition has improved, there's still jet lag clinging to the edges of Jon's thoughts. He leaves the room, hoping to acquire some kind of caffeine.</p><p>He returns with caffeine and an envelope. Elias, apparently, sent a letter, which the front desk had tried and failed to deliver last evening. It must have been after Jon fell asleep, after Michael's statement. After Jon ran headfirst into another consequence of his status as the Archivist, with absolutely no warning whatsoever. There's a moment where Jon considers not reading the letter at all, simply to spite Elias. How dare he contact Jon with a letter, this mocking proof that he knows where Jon is and where he'll go well enough to send something across the sea by post and be assured of its delivery. Elias knows what's happening better than Jon does, <em>as always</em>.</p><p>And as always, that means Elias could be telling him something important. When Elias reaches out, it's because he has something for Jon, because he's sharing something, and Jon can't throw that away. He just… can't.</p><p>He opens the letter in the hallway, because somehow that seems more private than opening it in the room. Michael might be awake. Michael might see… something. What, Jon doesn't know, but the point is that he doesn't want to share, he doesn't want a constant audience for everything in his life, some things should get to stay his. Elias's letter is to Jon, not Jon and Michael.</p><p>It's a statement. Jon recognizes the texture of the paper even before he unfolds it. And there's a note in the folds. 'To tide you over,' it says, in Elias's impeccably neat writing, with its odd, formal flourishes. Jon stuffs all of it, the statement and the note and the envelope, into the pocket of his trousers. He doesn't need it. He doesn't <em>need</em> it. Maybe he will later, and he'll have it for then, but at this moment he doesn't need what Elias gave him. Jon feels strangely giddy. He figured it out on his own. He needs statements, in some physical, undeniable way. But he has a ready source of statements right here. The Distortion has been around for millenia, and terrorizing humanity for the entire time. Jon doesn't think he could ever exhaust Michael's supply of statements. In this way, at least, he isn't dependent on Elias.</p><p>It feels good.</p><p>In a considerably better mood than he's been for perhaps the entire trip, Jon makes a choice. He's finished with America. He doesn't think he's going to learn anything more here, and he needs to go back to the Institute. He'll book a Greyhound to Washington DC for tomorrow and stop by the Usher Foundation for the sake of being thorough, but after that, he's leaving.</p><p>Today, though.</p><p>Today, he is going to take care of the issue of Michael's clothing, because Jon doubts that the TSA officers will look favorably upon a six-foot-plus foreigner in bloodstained clothing, particularly given Michael's mannerisms. The only part of that Jon is capable of fixing is the bloodstained clothing, so that's what he's going to do. He opens the door to the hotel room.</p>
<hr/><p>Perhaps the mall was a mistake.</p><p>It's just so <em>loud</em>. And bright. And loud. Michael looks about as overwhelmed as Jon feels. He has his arms wrapped around himself, hands fisted in the fabric of his shirt at his sides.</p><p>Jon's idea, which seemed much better when he was intoxicated with the power of figuring something out before Elias thought he would, was that the mall had a large selection of stores, and might encourage some kind of personal expression, the formation of or reconnection with an identity beyond being the Distortion. But this is… a lot.</p><p>"Let's find a map," Jon suggests, and walks around until he finds a kiosk, Michael sticking close by. Jon taps the list of clothing stores. "Here. Do any of these seem like places you'd like to go?"</p><p>Michael looks at the map. Then he leans in closer. And closer. Jon thinks it's just Michael's characteristic lack of respect for personal space until he realizes Michael is squinting. "Do you need glasses?" Jon says, the question leaving his mouth before he can think better of it.</p><p>"I don't know," Michael responds absently, then frowns. "Archivist," he says warningly. He manages a much more solidly threatening tone than he did last night, and Jon responds appropriately, pressing his lips together and stepping back. But there is a small, traitorous part of him that reminds him of Michael's fear, of Michael saying, that first night, that he thought Jon might <em>outmatch</em> him. A part that wants to push harder, go further. And all he's doing is asking questions. He's not hurting Michael. He wouldn't even ask anything personal or humiliating, just questions he would actually benefit from having answers to. Helen did say that Michael would be able to answer a lot of questions, and given last night's statement, he apparently remembers quite a lot.</p><p>He also referred to Michael Shelley in the third person. Again.</p><p>There is, of course, the possibility of some kind of dissociative state — it would hardly be a surprise, considering everything Michael's been through. But it seems that Michael genuinely considers himself separate from Michael Shelley. Whether or not that's reflective of reality gets into questions on the nature of identity that Jon doesn't really feel like grappling with at — he checks his watch — eleven forty three in the morning. The point is that Michael thinks of himself as something different from Michael Shelley, and Jon should try to respect that, and support him in figuring himself out. Hopefully he'll become someone less prone to injuring himself and others.</p><p>And someone who won't be absolute hell to take to an optometrist, because he almost definitely needs glasses.</p><p>"If you don't recognize any of the stores, we could always walk around until you see something you like," Jon offers, even though that sounds terrible. Malls are best approached with a strict plan and a timetable, otherwise they dissolve into a haze of indistinct sensory assaults and when you finally manage to exit you find that a different amount of time has passed than you expected. Usually more, but sometimes less. But they do have an entire day, and nothing better to do with it.</p><p>"I… suppose," Michael says. He straightens up, still tense, still ill at ease. Then they both stand there until Jon realizes that Michael is waiting for him to choose where they go next. So he picks a direction and sets off.</p><p>The music from inside the stores bounces against the music playing throughout the mall bounces against the overlapping, echoing voices and footsteps of the other mall patrons, and Jon grits his teeth. The unfamiliar accents make the whole thing just that much more surreal, a place so strangely altered and slightly off-kilter from reality that Jon's surprised Michael's not enjoying himself more.</p><p>They pass two shoe stores, directly next to each other, so weirdly alike that Jon isn't fully sure if they're different stores or the same store with different branding over each entrance. "At least you don't need new shoes," he comments. Then, because he is trying to encourage Michael to make choices and express preferences, he says "Unless you want them?"</p><p>"No," Michael says. Jon is relieved. Shoe-shopping is terrible. The smell of shoe stores is too strong to be ignored and too weak to be a full part of the sensory experience, a weird, teasing thing at the horizon of perception. Things should either have smells or they shouldn't.</p><p>They pass a few more stores, containing variations on the same cuts and styles and colors of clothes, none of which seem very appealing. To Jon or to Michael, apparently. The first thing Michael displays actual interest in is a sweet shop. He doesn't voice this interest, just stops following Jon and starts walking towards the entryway of the store. It's a good thing Michael's so damned tall. It's hard to miss where he goes. "That isn't clothing," Jon says, after catching sight of Michael's change of direction and hurrying to his side.</p><p>Michael blinks at him, undaunted. "I know," he says.</p><p>"We are here to get clothing." An idea occurs. "We can come back <em>after</em> you get new things to wear." Bribery is a perfectly respectable tactic, Jon thinks.</p><p>"We're here <em>now</em>," Michael says.</p><p>"And I control the money," Jon counters. Michael sighs dramatically.</p><p>"Fine," he says. Then he begins to walk towards another store. For a moment, Jon thinks it's a second sweet shop. It does resemble one, with its abundance of simultaneously bright and pastel colors, but it appears to contain mostly accessories, packed tightly together on the walls and many, many free-standing shelves and displays. It also appears to be marketing to young girls. Any actual clothing in there is unlikely to fit Michael. However, accessories are more like clothing than candy is, so Jon will allow it. He follows Michael into the store.</p><p>The choice does stimulate curiosity, but Jon can be patient. Questions about gender identity and expression probably fall a little too close to 'personal' for him to be justified in asking them just because Michael went into one store. Michael… or, the Distortion, anyway, does seem to have a penchant for bright colors, if the decor in the corridors is any indication, so that could explain this perfectly well. And if there's anything else to it, well, Michael can tell Jon in his own time.</p><p>Michael makes a few circuits through the store, acquiring a pair of socks with cats on them, several hair clips, a pair of short fingerless gloves, and three oversized scrunchies, all of them so brightly colored that they are mildly uncomfortable to look at. Jon wonders if Michael likes bright colors because he can see them more easily, on account of how he needs glasses, and whether that effect is negated by being in an intensely multichromatic store. He does not make this comment aloud, just directs Michael to the cashier when he appears to be finished actively looking for things and begins staring vaguely in the direction of a display of headbands with animal ears on them. Jon handles the majority of the transaction, which thankfully involves no small talk whatsoever, and they leave the store.</p><p>"Are we finished?" Michael asks.</p><p>"No," Jon says. "You need more clothes, Michael. You can't just wear those forever. I'm honestly surprised that they aren't in worse shape, considering how long you've been wearing them."</p><p>"I wash them," Michael says, in a tone of mild offense.</p><p>"You… wash them?"</p><p>"Yes. In the bath."</p><p>That does explain some things. Including why Michael's clothing seemed so much wrinklier yesterday when Jon returned to the hotel room, though Jon had been, reasonably, distracted by the bleeding, and then the statement, and hadn't felt it worth commenting on. And why Michael was damp the morning they took the bus to Pittsburgh. And why it doesn't smell like Michael has been wearing the same clothes for four days straight, something Jon had tried not to question or think too much about on the grounds that he was grateful for it and he didn't want it to disappear on examination. It does mean that the bloodstain on Michael's collar is likely well and truly set into the fabric, but that's, on the scale of things, fine. "Even so," Jon says, "you need more clothing than that."</p><p>Michael presses his lips together in a tight line, but follows Jon out of the store anyway. They make a passable circuit of the first floor without Michael displaying any interest in anything but the sweet shop again, and take an escalator to the second floor. Michael remains largely quiet. It's bordering on eerie. It's not that Jon misses how Michael used to be, it's just that the silence makes it hard to figure out how Michael is <em>now</em>. Where the differences are, what the differences are. Who this Michael is.</p><p>They pass a store spilling very loud music, and Michael halts, considering, before entering it. "Really?" Jon mutters to himself before following Michael in. This store is even more densely packed than the last one, or perhaps it just feels that way, because the decor and the noise and everything about it feel more aggressive. Jon has to turn sideways to get past some of the shelves without feeling like he's about to knock into them. It does, at least, appear to contain clothing, in addition to dubiously shaped figurines and an excess of metallic jewelry. It also has bags and backpacks, which might be worth getting so Michael will be able to access his things without going through Jon's.</p><p>Michael takes much longer to make any selections in this store than he did in the other, walking back and forth through all the sections again and again with evidently mounting frustration. Jon, hoping to avoid a public scene, says, "If you don't see anything you want, we can go to another store."</p><p>"No," Michael says. He reaches out to touch a skirt that appears to be made of vinyl and withdraws his hand immediately, shaking it as if to get the sensation off. "I'm looking."</p><p>"Then what's the problem?" Jon asks.</p><p>"I don't want to think about having a body," Michael says, then glares, hooking his fingers into shapes that are so much less like claws than they used to be. "<em>Archivist.</em>"</p><p>"I'm sorry," Jon says, even though he's not really. "I could help you pick things out…"</p><p>"I don't know what <em>size</em> I am," Michael says. "I don't like the way things <em>feel</em>. This is an exercise in indignity."</p><p>"Yes, that is what clothes shopping is like," Jon says drily. </p><p>"It's awful," Michael says.</p><p>"I'm aware," Jon says. "I think you would be an… extra large, at least, in shirts, possibly extra-extra large, if you'd like to make sure it's not too tight." Jon can't stand clinging fabric, but his grandmother told him that if his clothes were too big it made him look sloppy, so he only ever goes one size up at most. Not that anything in this store counts as professional attire in any sense, but Jon would prefer to avoid Michael developing any more bad habits. He has quite enough already. "I'm… less sure about trouser sizes. And. Pants. Probably size large, at the very least." Then, because Michael has been eyeing clothing regardless of gender affiliation, Jon adds, "The sizing on women's clothing is different. You'd likely need something several sizes above your size in men's clothing." </p><p>Michael hums. He's doing better at responding when Jon speaks, at least. Jon can work on getting him to respond in words later.</p><p>They make another circuit of the store, and Michael actually chooses clothing this time, including several sets of violently neon pants. Upon Jon's suggestion, Michael also acquires a backpack. All together, his selection clashes horrifically, but it's acceptable for the moment. </p><p>Michael will, however, have to learn to dress like a regular person at some point. Michael will have to figure out how to interact with society in general. Christ, will Michael have to get a job? Since he doesn't seem likely to up and stop existing, he'll probably have to get a job. At the Institute, of course. It's by far the best possible option, but that's more because inflicting Michael upon a normal workplace is a horrifically bad idea.</p><p>Michael working at the Institute. They've come full-circle, haven't they?</p><p>When they leave the store, Michael immediately orients towards the sweet shop and takes the lead, crossing the distance unerringly. Jon has to almost run to keep Michael within his sight, and when he enters the sweet shop Michael has already gotten one of the bags that can be filled directly from the numerous containers of various candies. Apparently, you pay by the pound. Jon's teeth hurt just imagining eating a pound of candy. "Don't overdo it," he cautions. "You'll give yourself an upset stomach if you eat too many sweets."</p><p>Jon was hoping to provide a useful tip, in case this is one of the areas of human needs and human body processes that Michael doesn't know how to deal with, but from the look on Michael's face, he's just presented a challenge.</p><p>The resulting bag weighs 7.46 pounds, not counting all of the candy Michael took out of the bins to sample against the express directions of multiple signs not to do that. It's mostly various kinds of gummies and jelly beans, with a few chocolates. It makes Jon feel ill to look at. "Do <em>not</em> eat that all at once," he tells Michael, because apparently he hasn't learned. Michael smiles at him. It's a very disturbing smile, despite being completely bound by the physical limits of a human body.</p><p>"Are you going to try to stop me?" he says.</p><p>"The laws of nature will stop you," Jon says. "I'm trying to help prevent that."</p><p>"Oh, are you two from England?" the person at the register asks.</p><p>"No," Michael says.</p><p>"Yes," Jon says. "You're not funny," he tells Michael, even though the person at the register is laughing.</p><p>Michael starts eating candy out of the bag before they even leave the shop, and continues eating candy as they pass through the mall and Jon summons a rideshare. He appears to be biting the heads off every single candy shaped like a living thing and throwing them back in the bag. It's upsetting, not in the least because he's focused on it to the point that it takes Jon several tries to get his attention and get him out of the car and back into the hotel. Once they return to their room, Jon installs Michael on Michael's bed, then takes the bag of newly-purchased clothing to the front desk to inquire about laundry facilities.</p><p>Probably he should not be leaving Michael unattended with what was formerly 7.46 pounds of candy. However, it is not like he could actually do anything to stop Michael, so their relative locations don't matter terribly much.</p><p>Jon methodically removes the tags from the clothing and puts them in the wash, then pays an absurd price for a packet of detergent and puts that in too. He decides to order lunch, because Michael may have decided that he's going to try to live off candy, but Jon is not. He orders something for Michael, too, because Jon, unlike Michael, is a responsible adult, and Jon knows Michael will need to eat something that qualifies as food. The wash cycle is brief enough that he's able to stay and to switch the clothes over to the dryer before he needs to return to the room to wait for the delivery. Michael barely acknowledges his entrance, still occupied with his macabre task. 7.46 pounds is a lot of candy heads to bite off. Jon almost wants to ask why Michael is doing it, but he's not emotionally prepared for the answer.</p><p>The food arrives. Jon attempts to offer Michael his share, but Michael waves him off, so Jon puts the take-out container in the fridge. Then he eats his lunch. Michael continues to work his way through the bag of candy. He's been bouncing his leg for the past five minutes with increasing rapidity. Jon thinks this is what it feels like to stand on an empty beach watching the approach of a tsunami, knowing it's too late to run.</p><p>There is no way to lock the hotel room from the outside, or Jon might consider shutting Michael in to wear himself out and going in to clean up the wreckage later. He would feel bad about treating Michael like a six-year-old, if it weren't for the fact that Michael is, in many ways, acting like one. Michael could also technically be considered to be a few weeks old, if Jon uses the Distortion's assumption of Helen's identity as a 'birthday.'</p><p>How old was Michael Shelley, when he was fed to the corridors? Did what Michael described as 'the memory of a body' still age? That doesn't have a practical bearing on anything, but Jon still finds himself wondering it. There are so many questions to ask. He never knows what answers might be useful, after all, so the acquisition of more information just makes sense, doesn't it?</p><p>Another time, maybe. Michael doesn't like being asked questions. Jon doubts Michael will be any more tractable under the influence of however much candy he's eaten.</p><p>"Would you like some?"</p><p>Jon startles. "Sorry?"</p><p>"Would you like any candy, Archivist," Michael says. "It's a simple question."</p><p>Jon looks at the bag of decapitated gummies. There is no hope whatsoever of him getting a piece of candy that has not touched another piece of candy that has already been in Michael's mouth. "No," he says. "But thank you for offering," he adds, because sharing is, at least theoretically, something to encourage.</p><p>Michael hums. He seems… not happy with the answer, but willing to accept it. Not angry, at least. That's good.</p><p>Jon retrieves his laptop and begins to click through the Usher Foundation's website. They seem to have a decent summary of their collections online, though their aesthetic choices leave a little to be desired. He set an alarm on his phone to go off when it's time to get the clothes from the dryer, so he doesn't have to worry about that. All he has to worry about, as is becoming standard, is Michael.</p><p>As Jon methodically checks through each tab of the website for more information, Michael moves from the bed to the desk, taking his candy with him. He picks up the complimentary pen and the pad of paper and begins… using them, in some way. Jon is apparently not capable of distinguishing the motions of drawing from the motions of writing. Which of the two would be better? He wants to think drawing, because he can't think of Michael writing anything pleasant and a drawing might at least be abstracted enough not to be problematic, but then, <em>abstraction</em> is a threat in itself, isn't it?</p><p>It's quiet, it's not destructive. Jon will accept this.</p><p>He continues to read. Michael continues to scratch the pen along the paper and eat candy. He seems to have beheaded the gummies to his satisfaction and has begun eating the rest of them, interspersed with jellybeans and chocolate. Jon is horrified and impressed that Michael hasn't been overwhelmed and nauseated by all the sweets yet. He does seem to have slowed down considerably, but he's still consumed far more than Jon would have thought possible. He's also still bouncing his leg.</p><p>The alarm goes off, and Michael jumps dramatically, almost tipping the chair backwards before he rights himself. Jon can't help it — a laugh escapes him. Michael turns around and Jon tenses reflexively before realizing that Michael is smiling, and then he gets even more tense. "Am I entertaining you, Archivist?" Michael asks.</p><p>"I have to go get your laundry," Jon says, standing up from the bed and trying very hard not to look like he's running away while still moving as fast as possible. "I, um, think you'll appreciate a change of clothes."</p><p>Michael looks somewhat put out by this, but Jon leaves before Michael can respond verbally. He is, of course, going to have to come <em>back</em>, but maybe Michael will be distracted by then.</p><p>The clothes, to Jon's mild surprise, are fully dry after just one trip through the dryer. Possibly because there weren't that many clothes — three pairs of pants, two pairs of shorts, three shirts, and four pairs of socks — but Jon has had enough experience with subpar dryers that he didn't have very high hopes for this one.</p><p>Now to go back to the room, and find out just how long the rest of the day is going to be.</p><p>In the brief time Jon was absent, Michael moved onto Jon's bed with the paper and pen, though he's currently occupied doing something on Jon's laptop. Jon tries to glance at the pad of paper while Michael is distracted, but it's been flipped over. He considers letting Michael continue to play with the laptop for as long as it works as a distraction, but he had intended to use it, and he wants it back before Michael does something to it. "I have your clothes," Jon says. He was going to follow up with the suggestion that Michael use the bathroom to change, but doesn't get the opportunity, because Michael immediately begins removing his shirt. "<em>Michael!</em>"</p><p>"Yes?" Michael asks. His body hair is a darker blond than his curls, almost brown, and Jon thinks he sees old, faint scars in several places on Michael's chest and torso. Michael stands up and begins removing his trousers, and Jon flings the bag of clothes in his direction and turns around, which he should have done from the start.</p><p>"For god's sake," Jon says, strangled.</p><p>Michael laughs.</p><p>When Jon turns around again, Michael is fully clothed and going through the bag of accessories. The outfit he ended up assembling is not the worst possible combination of the available clothing, but is not the best, either. Floral purple shorts, green and purple striped socks, and a large black T-shirt with 'Weird Vibes Only' printed on it in tie-dye lettering. And an oversized bow Michael retrieves from the bag and uses to pin back his hair. Now fully clothed, Michael sits down on Jon's bed and begins bouncing in place.</p><p>"What next, Archivist?" he asks.</p><p>Jon has taken one step towards his laptop. He didn't expect to be spoken to, and struggles with forming a response.</p><p>"Are we going out again?" Michael continues.</p><p>"I hadn't… planned on it?" Jon says.</p><p>"Are you tired?"</p><p>"No-"</p><p>"How often do you get tired?"</p><p>"I-"</p><p>"Don't you get sick of sleeping?"</p><p>"Mi-"</p><p>"It just takes <em>so much time</em>."</p><p>"Michael!" Jon finally manages to say, without interruptions. Michael tilts his head like an alien bird. He's human. His body is human, without compromise. But Michael still doesn't move like he's human. "Thank you," Jon says. "I don't know that it's a good idea to leave the hotel too much. I have a history of…" That was a bad sentence to start, and he can't think of a way to salvage it. "... unfortunate encounters."</p><p>"You don't need to worry about it," Michael says, very earnestly. "If anything tries to hurt you, I'll kill it."</p><p>What does Jon even say to that? Should he thank Michael? He shouldn't, because he shouldn't encourage violence, and also because Michael is probably not capable of killing things that come after them, and fighting back will only make the attackers angrier. But if Jon points out Michael's loss of power, that will almost certainly make his mood worse. Perhaps Jon should just move on from the subject entirely. He was being honest about his concerns about leaving the hotel room, but Michael's energy level is also concerning, especially considering their upcoming bus trip. "Let's… walk around outside the hotel, then. We're not going too far," Jon says, as Michael bounces to his feet. "But we can leave the room for a while. If you want."</p><p>A passing frown, there and gone too quickly for Jon to react. But Michael puts his shoes back on, and Jon takes that as answer enough.</p>
<hr/><p>The walk does not do as much to tire Michael as Jon hoped. Michael walks around Jon in uneven loops, and he probably walks at least four times the distance that Jon does as a result. Yet he seems more energized, not less, while Jon has thoroughly exhausted any goodwill his leg had left. He stretches it out as best he can sitting in the desk chair. Michael has taken over his bed once more, laying on his stomach kicking his feet in the air, doing something with the pad of paper and pen. And continuing to eat sweets. He's moved on to eating primarily the jellybeans, it seems, though there are still plenty of gummies left.</p><p>Seven-point-four-six <em>pounds</em> of candy.</p><p>"It's quiet," Michael complains. "It's quiet, Archivist, it's boring."</p><p>Words to strike fear into the heart. At least quiet is fairly easy to remedy. "Do you want me to put music on?" Jon offers.</p><p>Michael's feet still. Then he resumes kicking. "Yes," he says.</p><p>"Okay," Jon says. He opens YouTube in a new tab. While Michael has taken his bed, at least Jon has his laptop again, and can resume combing the Usher Foundation's website for a hint of whether they have any information relevant to Jon's objectives. Unfortunately, there isn't a special collection labeled 'Evil Clowns Who Want to Destroy the World' — or perhaps fortunately, as that would absolutely be a trap. In any case, he can play some music while he works, maybe even enjoy himself a little…</p><p>What music should he play?</p><p>Something that Michael will like, obviously, but <em>what</em> will Michael like? Has Michael had any opportunity to listen to music since Sannikov Land? What genres does he like? Jon first imagines elevator music, then rave music. He doesn't actually know what rave music sounds like, so he just imagines a lot of flashing neon. Neither of those seem particularly appealing to Jon, and he will also have to be physically present while the music plays, so he would prefer to choose something he can actually stand.</p><p>"Archivist," Michael says, drawing the word out into a whine. "<em>Music</em>."</p><p>"I'm thinking," Jon says. There's always what's been playing on the radio, he supposes, except he barely listens to the radio, because he hates what's on the radio. So probably not that. Maybe…</p><p>He types in the name of a song Georgie has been listening to lately. Had been listening to. Might still be, not that he'd know, not that he's likely to find out. He's moved out. He's moved out, he's not thinking about it, he has things to do. He clicks a video and changes tabs as the song begins to play.</p><p>Michael seems to enjoy it, if the reinvigorated kicking of his feet is any sign. It's cute, in a way, or would be, if it weren't Michael. Since it is, Jon's just waiting for the inevitable moment when it all goes bad.</p><p>Several songs later, Michael's kicking begins to slow. He hasn't taken any candy out of the bag for the past two songs, Jon notes. He had wondered what would hit first, the crash or the stomachache. In retrospect, it makes sense that the stomachache happened first, since Michael hasn't stopped eating candy for long enough to actually crash. That will come later.</p><p>Michael rolls onto his side and stops… drawing? Jon thinks he must be drawing, because he's been working on the same page for a while now. Michael's eyes are closed, and his brows are slightly drawn, a plain expression of uneasy discomfort.</p><p>Jon had been planning on letting Michael stew in his self-inflicted misery, but it occurs to him that Michael might vomit, and given Michael's general level of bodily awareness might not respond appropriately in advance. So Jon should probably do something before that happens. There's medication for upset stomachs in the first aid kit, which seems like a good start.</p><p>Now he just has to coax Michael into taking it. Jon is reminded, unwillingly, of the times Georgie requested his assistance in giving the Admiral a pill. Straddling Michael's back and prying his jaw open to shove the pill far enough back he swallows it would definitely, definitely be a bad idea, but Jon is almost tempted to start with that over trying to talk Michael into it.</p><p>"Michael," he says, standing at the side of the bed. "I have something for your stomachache."</p><p>Michael gives no sign of having heard Jon.</p><p>"Come on," Jon says, and shakes the partly empty bottle of water Michael had set on the nightstand. "You'll feel better."</p><p>"... don't want to," Michael says, eyes still shut.</p><p>"You need to trust me," Jon says. "I've been right so far." Now might not be the best time to point that out, but it's not like it's <em>untrue</em>. He's been right. Michael would be having a much easier time if he had just listened to Jon from the outset. The more he doesn't listen to Jon, the worse it gets.</p><p>Michael squeezes his lips together.</p><p>"Michael."</p><p>Michael cracks open an eye and glares. </p><p>"You know I'm right," Jon says.</p><p>Michael slowly drags himself into sitting upright. "Yes," he says.</p><p>"Yes what?"</p><p>Michael's mouth twists, and he reaches out. Jon places the medication in his hand, and hands Michael the water bottle after Michael places the medication in his mouth.  Then Jon's leg decides it's tired of supporting him. It gives him half a second's warning, so he's able to drop into a sitting position on the bed rather than onto the floor, but it is not at all graceful and is in fact mildly painful. He's also now sitting on the bed with Michael, and probably incapable of getting up. Which is. Fantastic. He turns so that he can see Michael, on the principle that even if he can't stop Michael from doing anything, he wants to at least know what's being done.</p><p>Michael shifts, then leans to the side and lays his head in Jon's lap.</p><p>Jon decides that he will hold as still as possible.</p><p>Michael makes a quiet, unhappy noise, which does not in any way enlighten Jon as to what he's supposed to do. Tentatively, he reaches out and pats Michael's shoulder. "You'll feel better soon." The words are stilted and awkward, but if Michael wanted something better he should not have made many, many of his choices.</p><p>Michael says something, so quietly and slurred Jon can't hear it. "What?" he says.</p><p>"My head hurts," Michael says.</p><p><em>I bet it does</em>, Jon managed to stop himself from saying. Instead he shifts his hand from Michael's shoulder to his head, scratching lightly at Michael's scalp. He doesn't know why he's doing it, other than that it seems like the safest option in a very, very dangerous situation with no good choices.</p><p>Michael sighs.</p><p>After a long, drawn out period that Jon barely processes as time at all, Michael says "I drew something for you."</p><p>"Oh. Er. Thank you," Jon says, carefully. He probably does not want to see it. It will bother him if he doesn't. "On the notepad?"</p><p>"Yes," Michael says.</p><p>It would require too odd a contortion to pick up the notepad with his free hand. He does have the dexterity to do so, but he also has the dexterity to just switch hands, so he begins to rake his burn-scarred fingers through Michael's hair and reaches for the notepad with his other hand. At least, he reflects, if Michael turns his head and bites Jon's fingers, he'll be getting the ones with less sensitive nerve endings.</p><p>On the top page of the notepad is a series of shapes and patterns that contain themselves, triangles in triangles in triangles and rectangles in rectangles in rectangles and circles in circles in circles, connected with lines that branch off themselves. It's visually engaging, but Jon doesn't like it. "This is, um…"</p><p>"The third page," Michael says.</p><p>"Ah." Jon flips to the second page. It's a remarkably detailed rendering of the bedside lamp, but the angles are all wrong and the corners connect impossibly. He flips to the third page.</p><p>It's a drawing of the Admiral.</p><p>Jon recognizes him instantly. There is, of course, the possibility that it just happens to look like the Admiral, that it's meant to be a random cat, except that's not possible at all. Not in these circumstances. That's the Admiral.</p><p>Is this meant to be a threat? Some kind of intimidation tactic, where Michael makes sure that Jon knows Michael was <em>watching him</em> while he lived with Georgie? How long? How often? Do those questions even make sense, with the Distortion? Jon wants to ask, but Michael's head is in his lap, and Michael will almost certainly object to being questioned, so Jon will not do that. "Thank you," he says instead, and tries to make it sound sincere. It is a very good drawing. He can admit that much.</p><p>Michael hums contentedly.</p>
<hr/><p>Michael has apparently decided that Jon's suitcase is his responsibility, and refuses to put Jon's suitcase or his own backpack in with the rest of the luggage. Jon would think Michael would want all the space he could get, but he supposes he already knew Michael had possessive tendencies, and apparently keeping his possessions to hand is more important than physical comfort.</p><p>Even at the comfort breaks, he takes the bags with him. Jon was mildly amused by this quirk, if occasionally frustrated with what seemed to him extra effort and potential delay, but now he is very grateful, because he has been kidnapped. Again. With Michael, this time, which means with their bags as well, because Julia had been more interested in getting Jon in the car than caring what else came with him. Michael moved into the backseat with the bags, leaving Jon to ride nervously beside Julia.</p><p>He was concerned, at first, that when Julia said he'd <em>caught the attention of something</em>, she meant Michael. That she'd think Jon was a collaborator, that Michael was still the Distortion and not whatever he actually is. But she'd seemed even less interested in Michael than she was in Jon, which was not terribly much, considering she'd kidnapped him. Maybe he'd be offended if he wasn't very certain that he doesn't want Julia to find him interesting.</p><p>"What's your friend's problem?" Julia says, glancing in the rearview mirror.</p><p>"Um, tired, I think," Jon says in absence of the knowledge of what Michael is doing that makes Julia think he has a problem, reaching for the explanation he thinks might cover the most of Michael's… Michael-ness. "Jetlag still. Makes him a little -"</p><p>"I mean, why's he glaring at me," Julia says.</p><p>"Oh! He's… rude. Michael," Jon says warningly, turning around in his seat to glare right back. Michael sticks his tongue out, then very deliberately stretches out across the backseat, feigning disinterest. He keeps it up through Jon's attempts to make conversation, though Jon does, out of the corner of the eye, catch Michael going as still and rigid as a statue at Julia's mention of the 'old woman' at the institute. Jon trips over saying Gertrude's name aloud, afraid that hearing it will be the final straw that causes Michael to go berserk. But he doesn't. Only stares with his pale, intent eyes. Then Jon has to add a new worry to the set he's juggling, that Julia will recognize Michael as a former assistant… but then, even if she had seen him, even if he had worked there when she gave her statement, she wouldn't have any reason to think that would have changed, would she? Maybe in another world Michael would have stayed on at the Institute. It's not like he quit.</p><p>"Weirdest thing, really," Julia says, as if she hasn't noticed or, more likely, doesn't care about Jon's intermittent moments of seemingly random panic. "Didn't mean to spill half of it, but… really helped me put the pieces together. You know?"</p><p>"Uh, I'm starting to," Jon says. Another weight on the side of statement-giving as therapeutic somehow. He's gaining more and more reason to suspect that Michael's post-statement terror was less about Jon and more about <em>Michael</em>. Did it remind him, maybe, of Jon taking his statement before he was undone? Or did it just remind him that Jon has any kind of supernatural power while Michael apparently has none? Jon has trouble feeling bad about either of those.</p><p>"You still haven't told me what you're doing this side of the pond," Julia says. "Or why you're asking around about Gerard Keay."</p><p>Was <em>that</em> what she had meant by 'interesting questions'? The hope that Gerard is somehow, impossibly, alive, someone who can give Jon answers, reignites. "Uh," Jon says, a self-conscious laugh escaping, "would you… believe me if I said I was trying to save the world?"</p><p>"Probably not," Julia says bluntly.</p><p>Michael snickers.</p><p>Jon is not upset. He knows it sounds ridiculous. He knows he doesn't look the type, that he's obviously not equipped to be dealing with what he's dealing with, and yet somehow, here he is, and he's not any happier about it than anyone else. "What about you?" he says. "What brings the daughter of Robert Montauk all the way out here? And why, exactly —"</p><p>It's about then that the police sirens cut in, and Julia gives a (the smell of blood, a gunshot, a knife against his throat, the smell of a freshly dug pit) <em>familiar</em> vicious smile as she pulls over to the side of the road. "Hunting," she says.</p>
<hr/><p>The cabin looks exactly like it should. Jon doesn't know how else to describe it, just that it looks exactly like a cabin in the American wilderness where two monster hunters would bring their prey. From the outside, it looks like it's falling apart. On the inside, it looks like it's falling apart, but in a way that still leaves it remarkably structurally sound. There are a few gaps in the walls that let in small, focused beams of light, illuminating the frankly impressive quantity of dust motes. The ceiling is solid, and low enough that Jon thinks there may be some kind of attic. He doesn't see stairs, but he does see another door.</p><p>Trevor and Julia drag the… the corpse? It should be a corpse, except Jon can also see it growing, changing, healing, if he picks an area and pays attention. He's not inclined to do so for long. It makes him nauseated, and he's not sure if that's because the sight of viscera is disgusting in general, or because he's absolutely certain that Officer Mustermann's insides are <em>not right</em>. Jon isn't an expert on human anatomy, but he's certain that whatever is inside this thing is just… wrong.</p><p>They drag Officer Mustermann into the cabin together. Jon's reasonably sure that they don't have to, that just one of them would have the strength to lift Officer Mustermann easily, but they seem to be enjoying letting him smack into things with a variety of gruesome noises. Michael watches them intently as they set their burden on the floor and retrieve rope that releases yet more dust when uncoiled. They had kept the bulk of the mutilations to the torso, which leaves the limbs intact enough to wind rope around. Jon can't help noticing the rope is bloodstained. It's been used before, apparently.</p><p>Julia catches him staring. "Yeah, we used to cut the limbs off," she says, binding Officer Mustermann's wrists with tight, efficient movements, "but it turns out that makes them harder to carry." She doesn't even need to look at what she's doing.</p><p>"Hardship builds character," Trevor says, from where he's binding Officer Mustermann's feet with equal ease.</p><p>"You've got too much character," Julia shoots back. "If you got rid of some of it, maybe anyone could stand being around you."</p><p>Whatever Trevor was going to say to that is interrupted by a pitchy inhale and a poorly stifled sneeze. Jon, Trevor, and Julia all look over at Michael.</p><p>Michael flushes pink, and then sneezes again. He's even worse at stifling the second one.</p><p>"God bless you," Trevor says. </p><p>Michael rubs his nose with the back of his hand, and Jon almost snaps at him to use a tissue before the obvious fact that there are no tissues occurs to him. Or rather, there's a travel pack of tissues in the first aid kit, but that's back in his suitcase, which is back in the car, which was locked once they all exited it. Julia had promised to unlock it once she was adequately sure of their cooperation and allegiances.</p><p>"You say you're from the Institute, but it's not like we can call to confirm," Julia had said.</p><p>"A-actually, you could," Jon said.</p><p>"We're out of range," Trevor said.</p><p>"I have two bars," Jon said, holding up his phone to demonstrate. "You could call right now."</p><p>Julia took his phone. "He said we're out of range," she said, and smiled with all of her teeth.</p><p>Michael had not contributed to the argument, which Jon had been grateful for. He could think of absolutely nothing that Michael could have said that would have improved the situation, and many, many things that Michael could have said that would make the situation actively worse. In fact, Michael had said nothing since the rest stop. Nothing when Officer Mustermann pulled them over. Nothing as Julia and Trevor took the axe to Officer Mustermann on the side of the road.</p><p>Jon did not anticipate that this was how Michael would break his ongoing silence.</p><p>"You're not ill, are you?" Jon asks. He thought he'd dodged that particular bullet on the discovery that his own sickness was caused by… withdrawals, but. It's not as if that's the only way Michael could get sick. And Michael has been incredibly bad at taking care of himself.</p><p>Michael glares at Jon. "No," he says.</p><p>"Are you sure?" Jon says.</p><p>"<em>Yes,</em>" Michael grits out.</p><p>Something in Officer Mustermann's open chest cavity squelches. Jon isn't sure if he regrets not having had lunch yet or regrets having eaten anything at all today.</p><p>"Oh, look, he's working on his liver!" Julia observes with something like pride. "Don't know why, not like he'll need it, but look at him go!"</p><p>"Maybe he's hoping we'll take him for a drink," Trevor suggests.</p><p>"I could go for a drink after this," Julia says thoughtfully. "Maybe —"</p><p>Michael sneezes. He seems to have given up on stifling.</p><p>"Ugh," Julia says. "Will you knock it off? You're ruining the ambiance."</p><p>Michael sneezes again. Jon would say that it was on purpose, but it seems like Michael has very little control over the situation. "Is it the dust?" Jon asks, realization dawning. "Are you allergic?" Maybe it would have occurred to him earlier if it didn't seem so absurdly human.</p><p>"Maybe," Michael says. He only manages to glare at Jon for the question for a few moments before sneezing twice more.</p><p>"If it bothers you so much, get a rag, and dust," Trevor says. He and Julia laugh. Jon had taken the way they worked together for the sort of intimate ease that can allegedly develop when you know and trust someone for a long time, but the more he observes it, the more eerie it becomes. They're too in-sync. "Rip something off Officer Mustermann, there."</p><p>"Or go outside," Julia suggests. "You could even try to run, if you feel like it." The way she smiles makes it clear exactly how much she'd enjoy it if Michael tried to run.</p><p>Michael sniffs wetly, his face now fully red, and redirects his gaze to the thing that's gradually reforming itself on the floor. Jon can't read Michael's expression, but he doesn't like that focus. It could just be interest in a gruesome spectacle, but…</p><p>Michael could give them away so easily, intentionally or not.</p><p>"Michael," Jon says, "you should go outside. The air is… clearer."</p><p>Michael looks at Jon, a feral cat's stare of calculating distrust. Then he stands up and stretches. "Fine," he says.</p><p>"Don't go far," Jon says.</p><p>"Or do," Trevor says, and he and Julia laugh again. It reminds Jon of hyenas. Not real hyenas. False, pop-culture hyenas, the human idea of a malicious laughing predator rather than the natural reality of a socially complex, intelligent carnivore.</p><p>Michael slinks out of the cabin, leaving Jon alone with Trevor, Julia, and their prey. Lucky him.</p><p>"Do you mind if I turn my tape recorder on?" he asks.</p>
<hr/><p>Jon debated whether he wanted Michael involved when he speaks to Gerard, and decided that he did, if only because he'd rather have Michael with him than out with Julia and Trevor saying god knows what. He even managed to convince Julia to let him into the car and his bag to retrieve the first aid kit and the store of tissues and antihistamines. Jon should probably thank Martin for the kit, considering how useful it's been. Even though it's absolutely overpacked for what should have been just Jon going through America, it is apparently exactly correct for Jon going through America with Michael and his unending stream of problems.</p><p>Michael was standing close by the door when Jon exited, possibly because he was taking the threats against his life seriously, but more likely because he was eavesdropping. Jon hopes Michael found the statement, and the interrogation of Officer Mustermann, educational. Primarily on the subject of 'absolutely under no circumstances should you let Trevor and Julia know what you used to be.'</p><p>(Officer Mustermann had only spoken of Michael in passing, as 'that big blond guy.' No sign of recognition. Jon is deeply grateful that Michael's identity doesn't seem to be as common knowledge as Jon's own, though he also feels it's a little unfair. Jon has been in the dark for so long, it's not right that everyone knows who he is when he's barely figured it out himself.)</p><p>Now Jon offers Michael a pill and the mostly-full bottled water from Michael's backpack. He has the travel pack of tissues in his pocket. "Here," he says. "This is for you, for —" Michael takes the pill and swallows it dry. "<em>Michael</em>," Jon says, mildly aghast. "You shouldn't just <em>take pills</em> that people give you without knowing what they are."</p><p>"Shouldn't I?" Michael says. "I'm familiar with <em>compliance</em>, Archivist."</p><p>Jon has seen no evidence to support this, but he keeps that observation to himself. "It was for your allergies," he says. "It may take time to work, but I want you with me when I talk to Gerard."</p><p>This seems to catch Michael's attention. He tilts his head, a new interest in his eyes.</p><p>"You can have your chat upstairs," Julia says, leaning against the doorway of the cabin with far more trust than Jon thinks the decrepit building deserves. She offers Jon a thick, lumpy book. "Gives you a little privacy."</p><p>Oh.</p><p>
  <em>Oh.</em>
</p><p>Jon takes the book. So this is what happened to Gerard Keay. He remembers Mary Keay's description of the book easily, and the description of what was done to make new pages. That explains Gertrude's arrest. How the book ended up with Trevor and Julia, he doesn't know exactly, but he can guess something close to the truth from their ongoing pattern of criminal activity and violence.</p><p>"Come on," Julia says, and jerks her head towards the interior of the cabin. Trevor leaves off doing something to Officer Mustermann that Jon doesn't want to think about and follows them over to the second door. Julia opens it and reveals a steep set of stairs, and they file after her, Julia first, Jon second, Michael third, and Trevor last. Jon can't figure out whose positioning he's most afraid of. He should, of course, be the most afraid of Michael, no matter what, as Julia and Trevor are at least acting like allies. They also repeatedly mutilated Officer Mustermann, but Officer Mustermann is a monster.</p><p>Still.</p><p>Jon feels like his position on the right side of the line that divides humans and monsters is precarious enough, to say nothing of where Michael would fall. If Michael reveals himself to be in the wrong place, he'll drag Jon over with him.</p><p>Is it strange to be <em>grateful</em> that Michael has allergies? It probably adds to the appearance of humanity.</p><p>The sort-of attic has holes in the roof, and a table in almost the center of the room. No chairs. Jon's not sure if chairs would create more questions about this whole setup, or less. He takes the book over to the table and sets it down gingerly. Then he sets his tape recorder down beside the book and turns it on. "Right," he says, "so I just… read it?"</p><p>Julia nods. "He's the last page."</p><p>Trevor snorts from behind her. "Good luck. I guess." There's a finality to it that gives Jon pause.</p><p>"You're not staying to… I don't know, keep an eye on us?" Jon asks.</p><p>"It's not a…" Julia begins, then shakes her head. "Trevor doesn't like using the book. I don't either. Makes me feel off. Dead should stay dead."</p><p>"S-so… I mean, why keep it around?" Jon asks.</p><p>"'Cause sometimes talking to the dead can stop you joining 'em. Come on, Julia," Trevor says, jerking his head towards the stairs. Jon has a terrible certainty about how they're going to occupy the time he spends talking to Gerard.</p><p>"Just give us a knock when you're done," Julia says. </p><p>"Sure," Jon says, without any certainty whatsoever.</p><p>They go down the stairs, Trevor first, and shut the door.</p><p>"Sure," Jon repeats. His leg protests at him, and he leans against the table. Michael does one better and hops onto the table, which wobbles and creaks ominously but holds his weight. He stretches long, long legs across the whole thing, leaving his feet hanging off the edge. Jon almost hopes the table collapses under him, just to watch him flail. But that's a horrible thing to think about, and then Jon wouldn't have the table, so he doesn't want that to happen.</p><p>He flips the book over, front side down, so he can open it to the last page without touching any of the rest. Skin. Why is there so much <em>skin</em> involved in this?</p><p>"Right," he says, steeling himself. "Okay."</p><p>He takes a deep breath, opens the book, and begins to read.</p><p>When Gerard appears, it's to Jon's right, just a little past the edge of the table, and Jon isn't sure when it happened. He's just… there, and seems to have been for a while. "Gerard?" Jon asks, as if there was any way it could be anyone else. He recognizes aspects of Gerard's appearance from descriptions given in statements, the unevenly dyed and faded black hair, the small tattoos of eyes on the joints of his fingers, the burn scars visible everywhere below his neck that's not covered by his black clothes. There appears to be some kind of logo on his shirt, but Jon can't read it. "Gerard Keay?"</p><p>"You're new," Gerard says. "Did you kill them?"</p><p>"Uh… who?"</p><p>"The Hunters. They had this book. Are they dead?"</p><p>"N-no," Jon says.</p><p>"Then piss off," Gerard says. "I told them I'm not talking."</p><p>"You're Gerard Keay," Michael interrupts, before Jon has a chance to say anything more.</p><p>"Yeah?" Gerard responds, arching his eyebrows. "We established that."</p><p>"You worked for Gertrude Robinson. She left you behind."</p><p>Gerard's face tightens. "You're just full of observations, aren't you."</p><p>Jon wants very much to jam an elbow into Michael's ribs before he makes things worse, but Michael is out of easy reach.</p><p>"No," Michael says. He points his feet, then straightens them. "That's not really my area. I did know the Archivist, though. The <em>previous</em> Archivist."</p><p>Gerard's expression does something Jon can't name. "When did she die?" he asks quietly.</p><p>"About a year after you did," Jon says, since he's not sure if Michael knows the answer to that question, and… well. He doubts any answer Michael gives will be nice.</p><p>"Was it peaceful?" Gerard asks.</p><p>Jon considers lying, for a moment. Giving Gerard, who worked closely with Gertrude, who clearly cared for her in some way, a false and reassuring idea of a gentle, nonviolent passing, the kind of death Jon tried to believe Gertrude had when he first filled her position. But no. Gerard knows far more about Gertrude than Jon did. He won't believe that for a moment. "No," he says.</p><p>"Good," Gerard says. "Don't think she would have wanted that. God, I can't imagine her dying in bed." He looks up at the perforated roof, then looks back at Jon. "You're from the Magnus Institute, then?"</p><p>"No," Michael says, at the same time that Jon says "Yes."</p><p>"I am, he's… it's complicated," Jon says.</p><p>"Yeah?" Gerard says. "He's off the books, huh? Like I was?"</p><p>"Unlikely," Michael says. "This is a temporary arrangement."</p><p>"Yeah, go ahead and tell yourself that, see where it gets you," Gerard says. Jon decides that he likes Gerard. "You knew her, though? Gertrude."</p><p>"In a fashion," Michael says.</p><p>"I'm sure that turned out great for you," Gerard says. He sighs. "Either of you got a cigarette?"</p><p>"Oh, uh, yeah," Jon says, fumbling through his pockets and extracting a carton and his lighter. "Here." The absurdity of the situation strikes him. "C-can you smoke it?" Gerard is not transparent, exactly, but overlaid on the world like a projection. And ghosts seem to be variable in their ability to interact with the physical world.</p><p>"Ugh. I guess not," Gerard says. His mouth tightens in neither a smile nor a frown, but something vaguely akin to a grimace, an expression of apathetic acceptance of an undeniable yet disappointing reality. "Yeah…" He glances at the cigarettes in Jon's hand again. "Nice lighter. You a spider freak, then? Didn't know the Institute let that sort of thing happen."</p><p>"What?" Jon asks, then remembers the design on his lighter. "Oh! Er, no. I-I never really, uh… I never really thought of it. I'm Jon. I'm, um, the Archivist."</p><p>"The new guy," Gerard says, and gives Jon an obvious once over. Jon tries not to fidget and marginally succeeds. "Following in her footsteps?"</p><p>"I'm trying to," Jon says. "They've been… they don't exactly lead where I thought they would."</p><p>"Yeah, she was like that," Gerard says. Michael scoffs. "What? Have something to add?"</p><p>"Her steps were always along the shortest distance between herself and her goal," Michael says. "If you were surprised by the path she took, you weren't paying attention." He sounds deeply bitter. The emotional weight of the proclamation is mildly offset by the fact that a few moments later, he inhales sharply and sneezes three times in a row into hastily cupped hands.</p><p>"Bless —" Gerard starts, and Michael sneezes again, "— you," he finishes. "You alright?"</p><p>"I'm fine," Michael grumbles. Jon extracts a tissue from the travel pack and hands it to Michael. Michael accepts it with offended dignity.</p><p>"I'm trying to stop the Unknowing," Jon tells Gerard.</p><p>Gerard exhales heavily. Jon wonders how he does it, without lungs, without the need to breathe, but then again, he's been able to talk. It's not that different. "She didn't manage it, then?"</p><p>"Not before she…" Jon winces. "Uh. I need your help."</p><p>Gerard snorts. "Do you now?"</p><p>"She talked about a-a way to stop it, on the tapes," Jon presses. "If anyone knows that that was, it's you."</p><p>A number of changes flick across Gerard's face. Jon thinks he recognizes something like happiness, then something else, or perhaps several other somethings, and then Gerard's face goes hard and blank. "No," he says. The response makes Jon feel as if he's missed a step on a staircase, falling when he expected security.</p><p>"What? Why not? If, if it happens, if the Circus —"</p><p>"Yeah, the world changes in horrible ways. For you," Gerard says harshly. "I'm a book."</p><p>"You can't be serious," Jon says. This runs counter to everything he's read about Gerard. Everything pointed to him helping people, to being something like <em>good</em>. He can't be another person who knows more than Jon and refuses to help, who laughs and shuts the door in his face. Gerard can't be okay with letting the Unknowing happen.</p><p>"I'm dead serious," Gerard says, smirking. Then he laughs hollowly. "It <em>hurts</em>. Being like this. It's not like any pain you can feel when you're alive. It hurts to exist. To be dead and still here. And those two want to keep me like this, so I can answer questions about their Dracula of the week. So, no. You're going to your little apocalypse with nothing unless you help me."</p><p>Well. No real choice there. "What do you want?" Jon says, ready for some kind of supernatural extortion, a promise that entails something he doesn't understand, an action that will get him hurt for the enjoyment of some dark god.</p><p>"I want to go away," Gerard says. "I want you to take my page and burn it."</p><p>Jon knows exactly what <em>that</em> promise entails. "I-I can't — They'd notice! They'd kill me!" Kill both of them, probably, even though Michael's not participating in this negotiation at all and Jon can't decide whether he's grateful or angry about that.</p><p>"Take it somewhere else first, then," Gerard says. "Tear it out."</p><p>"A-and if they check the book —"</p><p>"Guess you better hope they don't," Gerard says.</p><p>"Gerard, please…"</p><p>"You want answers? Tear out my page now, so I know you can't back out!"</p><p>It's the right thing to do. Jon knows it's the right thing to do. It's the right thing to do because Gerard is suffering, and it's the right thing to do because he needs to know how to stop the Unknowing. He <em>needs to know</em>.</p><p>He agrees. The softness and surprise in Gerard's voice when he thanks Jon should be enough to convince him he made the right choice. But he won't be convinced until he knows how to stop the Unknowing. He asks.</p><p>"No, I don't know," Gerard says, and Michael cackles.</p><p>"What?!" Jon demands over the laughter. "Michael, <em>shut up</em>."</p><p>"Oh, okay, okay," Gerry says as Michael's laughter dies down to giggles, and explains what he does know. It's more than Jon knew before, at least, and provides context for several things, most notably the key.</p><p>"Well, worst-case scenario, I suppose I… continue to have nothing," Jon says, trying not to sound too… emotional. He's not sure exactly what emotion would be coming out, but he doesn't think any of them would improve the situation at all.</p><p>"I guess," Gerard says. "So, uh… you're the Archivist now. And he's your… assistant?"</p><p>"No," Michael and Jon say, nearly in unison.</p><p>"Ah, so you're dating, then," Gerard says.</p><p>"<em>What?</em>" Jon demands.</p><p>"Y'know, like. On TV. When people both say 'no' like that, usually they're getting asked if they're together." Gerard sighs. "Nevermind. It wasn't funny."</p><p>"It-it was, or, it would have been, if it weren't him," Jon says. Actually, he can't think of anyone that would have been funny with, but that's a personal problem. "We. We don't get along very well."</p><p>"Really, Archivist," Michael drawls. "And I thought we had so much fun together. I'm hurt."</p><p>Jon decides to very aggressively move on from this entire line of conversation by asking Gerard if he knows anything about what it means to be the Archivist. And Michael, sort of. Not directly, but Jon hopes that Michael is capable of chiming in with useful information and not just rudeness. But the discussion of Gertrude makes him go quiet again, and stay that way through the discussion of Gerard's mother, and through the subsequent statement, save for the occasional sniffle. And he seems fine with staying out of the follow-up conversation until Jon gives his answer about what he knows about the Eye and its ilk.</p><p>"And you?" Gerard asks Michael. "How much do you know?"</p><p>"Nothing at all," Michael says, and giggles. "Far more than the Archivist. But nothing, nothing, I am empty of certainties."</p><p>Gerard narrows his eyes. "You're not human," he says. It's not a question. Michael smiles, and wiggles his shoulders gleefully.</p><p>"But I am," Michael says. "Because I'm not."</p><p>"So you're Spiral, then," Gerard says. Michael makes an unmistakably delighted squeaking noise. "How the hell did you two end up working together?"</p><p>"Like I said," Jon sighs, "it's complicated."</p><p>"Couldn't be anything but," Gerard says. "So, any real answer you could get out of this thing would probably be closer to the truth of it all than anything I can tell you, which means it'd be more incomprehensible. It's all so screwed up and unreal that you reach a point where understanding it too well makes you incapable of dealing with it practically." Gerard sighs. "Also, getting a real answer from a Spiral thing is like pulling teeth out of a beehive. If you hear anything that sounds straightforward from the Spiral, don't trust it for a second."</p><p>"Don't worry," Jon says darkly. "I won't."</p><p>Michael giggles.</p><p>"So, yeah. You've got some of it, I guess. But they don't <em>feed</em> on our fear. They <em>are</em> it."</p><p>"An interesting distinction to make," Michael mutters.</p><p>"Look, if you want to explain it to him, you'll have plenty more chances," Gerard says.</p><p>Michael doesn't see fit to contribute again until Jon, discomfited by the list of what the Eye comprises (needing to know, even if your discoveries might destroy you. The feeling that something, somewhere, is letting you suffer, just so it can watch) tries describing the Spiral. "The Spiral is the fear of madness, right? That worry that your world isn't right, th-that your mind is lying to you?"</p><p>(There has never been a door there, Archivist, your mind plays tricks on you…)</p><p>"Yeah, pretty much," Gerard says, and Michael laughs. "Something to add?"</p><p>"<em>Not</em> the worry that your mind isn't right," Michael says. "The knowing that it isn't. The knowing that you couldn't know. That the things you can perceive are so terribly limited, so distorted, that you could be the only one seeing what you see, and what you see might be real, or might not be, and you will never know the difference, and there will never be any clarity."</p><p>"Yeah. That," Gerard says, but Michael's not done.</p><p>"Patterns that cannot be fully grasped, only sensed, only unraveled in infinitesimal parts and pieces that contain in themselves the whole. The shape unending, the infinite possibility that leaves you frozen," Michael continues. Hysteria creeps in at the edges of his voice. "The lies that reveal. The vortex that never lets you go. It <em>never lets you go</em>. It never — it doesn't — <em>I</em> never —" He pulls his legs to his chest and wraps his arms around them tightly.</p><p>"Jesus, alright, okay," Gerard says. "It's all that. D'you mind postponing whatever crisis you're having? We're running out of time."</p><p>"He's been having a rough go of it," Jon says. He's not sure if he's defending Michael or apologizing for him. "Um, there's also the End, right? The fear of death?"</p><p>Gerard walks Jon through the rest of Smirke's 14 with no response, no <em>movement</em> from Michael. No movement besides slow, uncomfortably normal breathing and the occasional blink. No response when Gertrude comes up again, and Gerard visibly and steadily becomes more exhausted looking, like the effort of speaking wears against his very existence. Jon's not surprised when Gerard says that he's done, and not entirely surprised when Gerard repeats his request to have Jon take the page and burn it. Like he thought Jon would forget. Or "forget."</p><p>"I will," Jon promises. This has been a more than even exchange. Even though there are plenty of other things Gerard could have to tell him, he's given Jon so much more knowledge than he would otherwise have gotten. And it's the right thing to do. "Thank you, Gerard."</p><p>"Gerry."</p><p>"What?"</p><p>"Gerard was what my mum called me." He laughs, a short, embarrassed chuckle. There is a lifetime of hope and regret in his laugh. "I always wanted my friends to call me Gerry."</p><p>"Thank you, Gerry," Jon says softly. Then he realizes he doesn't know for sure how to release Gerry from holding his shape. "Uh… I dismiss you," he says, and hopes he hasn't made a fool of himself.</p><p>Gerry disappears with a soft static noise, and a sigh.</p><p>"Oh. Alright," Jon says. He closes the book, and flips it back over, decreasing the likelihood that the back cover will flop open and reveal a skin color that isn't Gerry's as the last page anytime before Jon is on a plane back to London. "I'm ready!"</p>
<hr/><p>The Archivist puts the skin page into his pocket and a pocket is a space/gap/potential. It feels/recognizes them, even though it cannot access them quite as easily.</p><p>Not quite as easily. But still.</p><p>It fights its way through the sludge of reality, the weight of the physical world and the effort of thought, then moves its body as if it is standing behind and above it, a sensation that almost brushes against what it once was. It manages to uncurl and stand before the Hunters or the Archivist attempts to move it. It takes so much effort to move itself, and it can feel its ability to do so fading with each step, so it isn't able to contribute directly to the pain inflicted on the uncanny-reflection as it passes by its shuddering form. It assisted in delivering the thing to Hunters, at least, and that will have to be enough, until… until.</p><p>It is not patient, but even though time constricts it, squeezes it along a unidirectional path, it does not have to believe this. It is not patient, but time is relative, and it can wait.</p><p>The Hunters drive the Archivist to Washington DC. It pretends to sleep in the backseat, to cover for the way its body locks into a rigid and uncooperative stillness once more. Eventually, as is right/congruous, the lie bleeds into the truth, but before that happens, it considers. It plans.</p><p>
  <em>It hurts to exist. It hurts to exist. It hurts to exist.</em>
</p><p>Yes. It exists, and this hurts it. It could cease living, but that would not erase its <em>existence</em>. It needs to stop existing. It needs to return to its endless tunneling state of real-not-real, false-truth, honest-lie. And as long as it must exist…</p><p>At the airport, the Archivist moves the skin page to his bag. He must remove his laptop from the bag at the security gate, and leaves the flap unzipped for convenience while the airport officials look at its passport and see everything they believe they need to see. It wants to destroy its other-self for the power it has lost, it wants to destroy its broken-self for the power it has lost. It wants. It bites the tip of a finger, nails too short to get any purchase on, and follows the Archivist through machines that whir and fail to break in its presence to the end of the conveyor belt where the bags appear. As the Archivist acquires his shoes and reties the laces, it reaches out, into the unzipped bag, where it knows the skin page is. And then it tucks the skin page into its own pocket, deep, deep, as deep as it can, which is only as deep as the pocket is made but is still deep enough that the Archivist does not notice.</p><p>
  
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